If Canada is going to develop more sovereign space capabilities it will need to increase the number of companies in the space manufacturing sector. One new Canadian company, Space Credibility Canada Inc. (SCCI), is accepting the challenge.
After having efficiently developed their capability to produce electronic components that can handle the rigours of space, they’ve recently announced a new contract to produce key components for the Dish network’s EchoStar 26.
SpaceQ spoke with SCCI’s Vice-President and Managing Director, Jeffrey Wiesel to us to help explain what’s going on and why their website says that “we don’t do commercial work.”
A manufacturing “startup” with day-one capabilities
SCCI specializes in “space-qualified manufacturing,” that is “low-volume, high-mix”, and “built for space.” While intriguing, it doesn’t provide many details, so we asked Wiesel about specifics, and he provided some information. He also told us more about how SCCI came to be.
SCCI actually provides a lot of different potential services, “spanning from mission assurance oversight to full scale hardware production,” and is looking to expand. Wiesel said that “it means we take a design from a customer and build to print their design,” which requires them to have the capability to “manage the program, order the materials, [and] manufacture and arrange testing of their design.”
“Our catch phrase is ‘your designs, our expertise, Go Beyond Earth’,” Wiesel added.
SCCI itself is a new company, founded in 2023, but with established assets and personnel. That includes space experts from Honeywell (like Wiesel) and a mixture of personnel and equipment originally from a Kanata-based manufacturing facility that was run by Leonardo’s defence-focused DRS subsidiary.
Leonardo DRS decided to exit the space business a few years ago. “Low percentage of the business, high hassle” according to Wiesel. It was understandable, but it left a big gap in Canadian space manufacturing and (according to Wiesel) “created a panic in the industry as this capability was taken away.” Who was going to fill that gap?
But while the company was leaving, all the people and equipment were still there, in that same manufacturing facility. What would happen to them?
Wiesel and the other SCCI leaders were experienced space sector experts, with decades of experience among them. Wiesel himself originally worked at COM DEV starting in 1983, then moved to Honeywell after its COM DEV acquisition. Several others (like co-founder Harry Webster and current General Manager Ryan Miller) had been part of Leonardo DRS, and wanted to stay in the space sector.
They saw the gap, saw that spare capacity, and decided to act.
They negotiated with Leonardo to acquire some of the equipment, and even hired many of DRS’s laid-off manufacturing workers. The combination of effective equipment, skilled workers, and experienced founders (Wiesel said) “allowed SCCI to rapidly earn revenue, and [to] set up the manufacturing space we have.” So they were able to pick up where DRS left off, and are looking to rapidly acquire new space-focused manufacturing capabilities.
Circuitboards in spacecraft
At the moment the company is focused on CCA, or Circuit Card Assembly. That involves taking electronic components (like chips, integrated circuits, transformers and such) and (Wiesel said) “preparing them for manufacturing, assembling them onto printed wiring boards, [and] then taking those assembled boards and putting them into higher-level assemblies.”
Specifically, Wiesel said, SCCI handles several key tasks: sourcing for the components, including “space quality components,” procuring the components, preparing them for installation (including adding shields to integrated circuits), creating the traceability documentation (saying which components go where), and “specifying the thermal profile for the reflow oven.”
(Reflow ovens are devices that allow companies to solder all the components to a board simultaneously. Currently that’s being done elsewhere, but SCCI will be getting their own reflow oven in the coming year, as well as “automated pick and place” equipment that puts the components on the boards.)
To do this, the company has a wide variety of equipment: soldering equipment (including hand soldering irons), inspection equipment (like ionic cleanliness testers and automated optical inspection devices) and various testing equipment like thermal burn-in and cycling chambers. They also have a cleanroom facility, with “ESD” flooring that prevents static discharges. Even though they don’t produce the chips in-house, it’s still a daunting kind of work to put it all together and make sure it’ll all work in space.
As always, Wiesel added, that “space” part makes the work uniquely challenging. Readers are likely to be familiar with the rigors of space: the radiation, the vacuum, the temperature changes. And, Wiesel said, these are things they have to take into consideration: he noted that “getting heat out is a challenge,” and the issue of radiation creates a need for thermal bonding, special solder, and extensive use of radiation shields. This requires an expert workforce, with specialized skills.
But another aspect of space-focused manufacturing often gets overlooked, which is (as Wiesel explained) that space is a “relatively low volume, high-mix environment.” Most of these kinds of components are manufactured in large quantities, with one component being put together over and over again thousands or even millions of times with little-to-no variance. In space, though, “runs may be as low as one-off, requiring tooling and process changes on a constant basis.” Plus, the lower volume means higher prices per component: “an IC for your laptop might cost $100-$300,” he said, but “for space that will be 10x or more higher cost per component.”
You also can’t afford mistakes: big commercial yields means that there’s lots of spares to rely on if a part fails, but with space you really need to “get it right the first time,” especially with lead times that can be measured in years. He also mentioned traceability as a key issue: customers need to know what parts went where, and what kind of machine was used to place it there, in order to build and install their payload.
All of those things necessitate a specialized environment, specialized toolset, and specialized approach. Wiesel said it often also requires work by hand, too, to add the radiation shields and such. Utter and complete cleanliness is an absolute must as well.
That, in turn, is why SCCI’s website says that they don’t do commercial work. We asked about it, and Wiesel explained: they do work on a B2B basis with commercial satellite operators and other private space-focused companies, but they need to specialize in this kind of low-yield and high-stakes work that is seen principally in space. That specialization excludes most terrestrial work.
Echostar 26
Their most recent announcement is that they’re going to be providing components for Dish Network’s Echostar 26 geosynchronous broadcast satellite. Their post on LinkedIn, from a few weeks ago, said that they have contracts “totalling $2 million USD from a leading international Space RF Technology OEM for the supply of 16 different sub-system components essential to the power amplification system of the EchoStar XXVI satellite program.”
Interestingly enough, though they mention that they’ll be working on EchoStar, they did not disclose the direct client. Normally you would see something like that with defence or national security contracts, not commercial ones. Wiesel said that it wasn’t for sensitivity reasons per se, but because “it is about us quietly developing our niche and customer base,” and that part of their goal is “reducing our customers’ stress by quietly doing our job.”
While they won’t disclose the client, they’re more open on the work being done for the client. Wiesel explained that SCCI will be providing circuit assemblies used to provide power and control for the EchoStar’s power amplifier system. They are, he explained, the devices that “take the (television) signal that has been received on the spacecraft, amplify it, and send it to the antennas so that the signal can be transmitted back to earth and received on your dish.” He added that “these amplifiers are the backbone of the satellite payload, and are the largest consumer of power on board.”
Adding to the challenge, it’s a long-term job: it’s a big satellite that’s expected to be in orbit for at least a decade. “Working flawlessly for 15 years in space,” Wiesel noted, “is a tall order.”
And while that’s happening, they’ll be continuing to ramp up the company. “In the coming year, we’ll be supplying to other commercial space programs, including CSA/NASA” Wiesel said, as well as building up their capabilities.
In Q1 2026, he said, “we are adding our own pick and place robot, solder paste dispenser, upgraded optical inspection, reflow oven, and 3D X-ray inspection equipment.” Later in 2026, they’ll be adding a thermal shock chamber and conformal coating (“like a high-end paint booth, Wiesel said”) into their facility.