Maritime Launch Services Inc. announced on May 4th that they had signed a letter of intent with Quebec based launch provider Reaction Dynamics to conduct launches from Spaceport Nova Scotia starting in 2023. The news marks the emergence of Reaction Dynamics from the shadows.
Reaction Dynamics (RDX) will first launch a suborbital test out of the Maritime Launch Services Inc. (MLSI) launch facility near the town of Canso, Nova Scotia in the summer of 2023. This will be followed by launches of RDX’s Aurora small-satellite launch vehicle during Phase One of MLSI’s spaceport development plan. MLSI will gain the ability to launch medium-class vehicles in Phase Two, currently scheduled for no earlier than the second half of 2024 which will include the Ukrainian-built Cyclone-4M as previously announced.
If they’re successful, it will be a milestone for the Canadian space industry with RDX developing the first made-in-Canada commercial orbital launch vehicle, teaming up with MLSI who are developing Canada’s only domestic spaceport —which will also be one of the few commercially-owned launch facilities around the world.
In separate interviews with SpaceQ, MLSI CEO Stephen Matier and RDX CEO Bachar Elzein provided several reasons why they see this as an important deal.
MLSI: “Hanging over the top of the Atlantic Ocean”
Matier said that they’d had a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) in place to find ways to cooperate in place for several years, after he’d taken personal interest in the company due to his background in propulsion tests. RDX won’t be the only company providing launch capacity to MLSI—which includes their established connection to Ukrainian Cyclone-4 launch vehicle providers Yuzhnoye and Yuzhmash and another soon-to-be-announced launch company—but these early launches will help establish MLSI’s viability in the launch market, giving it time (in Matier’s words) to “get some some flight experience under our belt.”
Matier pointed to several MLSI advantages that are attracting companies like RDX. He believes that modern low Earth orbit (LEO) focused satellite companies “are increasingly interested in polar, sun-synchronous and inclined orbits,” and that their location “hanging over the top of the Atlantic Ocean looking due south [means that] we can cover a range of inclinations from 45 degrees all the way to 98 degrees…we hit that sweet spot all in one place.” There’s also infrastructure and a deep seaport in the area.
As they’re a commercial, not a government-owned launch facility, customers won’t have to wait for governmental launches. Matier pointed out that that’s extremely rare, and will combine with their unique location to let MLSI better fulfil customers time and orbit preferences. Aside from Nanoracks, which had already made a launch agreement with MLSI to launch on the Cyclone 4M, Matier said that prospective customers are already expressing interest. He couldn’t go into details, however.
While the RDX launches will be comparatively simple, Matier granted that they had a lot of work to do to get to the point where they can run medium-class launches in 2024. He said they’d need storage for helium, nitrogen and propellants, as well as “a flame trench, integration facility, payload processing facility, and Launch Control Centre.” He was confident that they’d get it done, however, saying “we have the luxury of time.”
Matier was also optimistic about their government and community relations. He said that their interactions with Transport Canada, Nav Canada, Global Affairs Canada, the Canadian Space Agency, and even the Department of National Defence have all gone well and been “profoundly gratifying.” The people of Canso, Nova Scotia have been “extremely supportive,” and “want to see something going, they want to see construction start.”
Matier is pleased with their listing (NEO:MAXQ) on the Toronto-based NEO exchange as well. He said that “the share price is fine, the volume is fine” and that he’s glad that Canadian retail investors can participate in MLSI’s development.
Reaction Dynamics: Simple and clean hybrid engines
Elzein echoed many of the same points; that one of their competitive advantages as an independent launch provider is being able to more closely fulfil customer’s time and orbit demands, and that their conversations with MLSI had been a quiet but ongoing process. MLSI had planned on soliciting a number of different launch partners, and RDX was a good fit for building a fully-Canadian launch solution, especially during MLSI’s Phase One buildup.
Elzein, however, was more focused on their engines as RDX’s competitive advantage. Each Aurora launch vehicle will have ten of RDX’s RE-202 “hybrid” engines, which use a combination of solid fuel and a liquid oxidizer. This particular combination means that engines can be a lot simpler to both design and manufacture than solid/solid engines—Elzein said they are “a rocket engine made out of [only] three parts”—and can be far safer than solid rocket engines with their potentially-volatile mixture of fuel and oxidizers.
(Hybrid engines aren’t a new idea, but there have been ongoing issues with their ability to run at high performance for long durations. Elzein’s own work on resolving that problem was what led to the creation of RDX.)
Aurora is a two stage launch vehicle with nine RE-202 engines in the booster stage and one RE-202 engine optimized for vacuum flight in the upper stage.
Elzein emphasized that there are two key advantages of the hybrid engines: price and environmental impact. The simplicity of hybrid engines means that they are far cheaper to manufacture than liquid/liquid engines. While Elzein couldn’t give specific numbers, he suggested that the manufacturing cost for their 3D-printed hybrid engines would be dramatically lower than comparable engines using liquid propellants.
Elzein said that their hybrid engine’s simplicity means that “you have much less components to manufacture. That means your carbon footprint is reduced because you don’t have to expend as much energy to machine, manufacture, and mill close to 50,000 components [as] your whole rocket has less than 500. That’s something that’s cutting our carbon footprint dramatically.”
The RE-202 will be using recycled plastics as its fuel, which will not only help reduce the carbon footprint but also means that the fuel is comparatively easy and safe to store until right before it’s needed. That combination of low price, “green” engine and readily-available fuel is attracting both investors and customers; while Elzein could not provide any details at the moment, he said they will be making significant announcements on both of these fronts soon.
Elzein said that they would be performing a full-duration burn test in the next few weeks, and will have other announcements on their testing of the Aurora soon. While a Rocket Lab-style expansion to medium-class launch vehicles would be a logical next step, especially considering MLSI’s Phase Two expansion, Elzein didn’t want to speak on the prospect of medium-class launch vehicles until “we have a couple of flights under our belt.”
Canada’s own launch capacity
Both Matier and Elzein were excited about bringing launch capacity back to Canada. Elzein said that their hybrid engines are really “a technology that will provide Canada with sovereign launch capabilities,” and that they’d chosen the “Aurora” name with that in mind. It was also chosen to reflect RDX’s green aspirations, as you can only see the Aurora Borealis in a clear and clean sky.
Matier said that “for us, it’s obviously very important to really continue our collaboration with our federal partners to develop the processes for rocket launch from Canada,” noting that Canada hasn’t had rocket launch processes since the suborbital flights from the Churchill Rocket Research Range that ended over 20 years ago.
There have been regulatory barriers, but he said “the federal government is looking at those old regs [to] bring them forward and update them, and have been working with us on that process.” This was a major reason for the phased approach, to allow the government time to build a favourable regulatory environment.