Canada Rocket Company held a groundbreaking ceremony Thursday for a $30-million rocket engine test site at London International Airport in southwestern Ontario and will name it for astronaut Jeremy Hansen.
The Toronto headquartered company is developing a reusable rocket meant to lift up to 12,500 kilograms to sun-synchronous orbit, the near-polar path many Earth-observation satellites use. The company calls the London site Canada’s first large-scale static test facility. Competitors NordSpace and Reaction Dynamics both have their own operational test sites, though both are only testing smaller rocket engines at this time.
The stands are meant for engines producing more than a meganewton of thrust, about 225,000 pounds. Chief executive officer Hugh Kolias said in the release that this puts Canada in “a small group of less than 10 countries worldwide” with the capability. SpaceQ has not independently confirmed that count.
Welcome to London, a growing regional city
The site sits on 50 acres leased from the Greater London International Airport Authority. London, the largest city in southwestern Ontario, had 422,324 people in the 2021 census, or about 544,000 in the wider metropolitan area
In a July interview, Kolias told SpaceQ the company had secured a site for engines above a meganewton and that a smaller test facility in Etobicoke was about to open. SpaceQ reported then that the company had completed initial designs, engineering and permitting for the site. It appears that the site Kolias alluded to is the one unveiled Thursday.
The release says the company is also working with the airport, regulators and the community as planning advances, and plans a public consultation in October. The date, time and place are still to come.
The site will have up to three vertical and horizontal stands for static firing the company said. A 12,000-square-foot building beside them will hold offices and a fabrication area.
The company gave SpaceQ 20585 Nissouri Road in Thorndale as the address of the leased land, north-east of the airport’s runways. Heeman’s, a greenhouse and strawberry farm on the same road, is less than a kilometre south by SpaceQ’s measurement on a map, and the Forest City National Golf Club is about three kilometres west.
Rocket engine testing produces considerable noise and some shaking and rattling for a short time during a test.
SpaceQ asked the company how it would handle noise complaints from neighbours. “Engine testing does produce noise, but it’s concentrated close to the site,” the company said. “We’re also building in mitigation measures, like water deluge and sound suppression, to reduce noise further. We’ll be having a public consultation to ensure we’re engaging with the community directly on any concerns.”
Funding
The release calls the facility a $30 million investment but does not mention any new funding. In July Kolias told SpaceQ the company had raised $22.5. They also also were awarded $8.3 million from the Department of National Defence’s IDEaS Program Launch the North challenge.
Kolias told the The Globe and Mail the company will spend the $30 million investment over three years. The company continues to fundraise and expects to have well above $30 million within a few months, the Globe reported.
Jobs and training
The company expects about 40 jobs at the London site within 18 months and says it is developing training partnerships with Western University and Fanshawe College. Two Ontario ministers, Vic Fedeli (economic development, job creation and trade) and Nolan Quinn (colleges, universities, research excellence and security), welcomed the project in the release. Neither statement mentions provincial money.
Kapil Lakhotia, president and chief executive officer of the London Economic Development Corporation, said the city already has more than 40 defence and aerospace companies.
The company projects that the wider rocket program will create roughly 1,000 jobs and draw more than $1 billion in investment over a decade.
Hansen, who flew around the Moon on NASA’s Artemis II mission, is quoted in the release saying that missions like it depend on a strong national space sector and that sovereign launch, a country’s own means of putting satellites in orbit, is an important part of Canada’s future. He was born in London, according to his Canadian Space Agency biography.
The road to 2032
The release says the London site will be fully operational in 2028 and the company said Thursday it aims to reach orbit in 2032.
SpaceQ reported in July that the company is building a small pathfinder rocket, the R-1, but aims to make the medium-lift R-2, a mid-sized launcher, its first commercial vehicle. Kolias said then that the company was on track to hot-fire a gas generator, a component of its engine, by the end of the year.