Galaxia will build an autonomous flight safety system for launches from Maritime Launch Services’ Spaceport Nova Scotia, the two Halifax companies announced Wednesday.
Maritime Launch is paying for the development, with support from the National Research Council of Canada Industrial Research Assistance Program (NRC IRAP), according to the release, issued at the DEFSEC Atlantic defence trade show in Halifax. The companies gave no contract value or delivery date.
NRC IRAP agreed in April 2025 to contribute $250,000 to Maritime Launch for an “Autonomous Flight Safety System” federal grants records show. The record describes a device that monitors a rocket in flight and checks that it stays inside its planned safety corridor, which Maritime Launch intends to offer to the launch companies using the spaceport.
Maritime Launch chief executive Stephen Matier told SpaceQ in August 2025 that the company had been developing the system and that Reaction Dynamics, which was then taking a stake in Maritime Launch and booking a dedicated pad, was collaborating on it. SpaceQ reported at the time that the system could be tested on Aurora-1, the suborbital rocket Reaction Dynamics dropped this week. It’s not clear whether Reaction Dynamics is still working on the system.
Rockets carry flight safety systems so that if a vehicle veers off course it can be shut down or destroyed. On traditional launch ranges, a safety officer on the ground watches tracking data and sends the command. An autonomous system makes the decision onboard from the rocket’s own sensors. The U.S. Space Force set a goal of having autonomous systems on all launches from its ranges by 2025, Air & Space Forces Magazine reported in 2022.
Galaxia’s version will use backup controllers built to withstand radiation, combine readings from several sensors to track the vehicle’s health, and carry its own power supply, the release says. The Halifax company builds and operates satellites and makes computers that process their data in orbit, including the Onyx Edge system it unveiled in July, and its first satellite, MÖBIUS-1, reached orbit last year.
“By developing an autonomous flight termination capability here in Nova Scotia, Galaxia is helping deliver the resilient, sovereign systems Canada needs for the next era of space access,” Lucas Rowlands, Galaxia’s vice-president of mission operations, said in the release.
Maritime Launch holds a 10-year Department of National Defence (DND) lease for a dedicated pad at its site near Canso, N.S., the deal behind its first operating profit this summer. In September it finalized the work plan for a launch complex for Germany’s Isar Aerospace. The company is aiming for full orbital launch capability at the spaceport in the first quarter of 2028.