Editor’s Note
Welcome to the seventh briefing of In Defence of Canada.
If there is a unifying theme to this week’s issue, it is the uncompromising necessity of strategic autonomy. For decades, the Canadian space and defence sectors have debated the economic merits of building a sovereign orbital infrastructure. As the newly released United States Space Force Future Operating Environment 2040 (PDF) report makes explicitly clear, that debate is over. We are entering an era of “Unrestricted Spectrum Warfare,” where relying entirely on allied capacity for launch, sensing, and data transport is no longer a viable security posture.
Ottawa has clearly received the signal. This week’s introduction of Bill C-28, the Canadian Space Launch Act, is a watershed moment for the domestic industrial base. By establishing a statutory framework for commercial spaceflight, the legislation provides the regulatory certainty required to operationalize the Department of National Defence’s recent investments in sovereign launch capacity. It is the legal architecture needed to break our reliance on foreign supply chains and navigate stringent ITAR restrictions.
We are also seeing this drive for domain awareness accelerate across our procurement pipelines. From NordSpace securing IDEaS funding for Arctic-focused VLEO constellations, to the Canadian Armed Forces concluding Operation NANOOK-NUNALIVUT with a heavy emphasis on space-based intelligence, the demand signal for domestic capability is unmistakable. As Dr. Nicole Jackson notes in this week’s Guest Opinion, building these networks is not just about hardware; it is about providing the rapid detection and shared assessment capabilities required to defend NATO’s northern flank.
In this issue, we break down the defence implications of Bill C-28, analyze the USSF 2040 blueprint, and track the latest allied shifts toward space mobility and sovereign intelligence.
Marc Boucher
Editor-in-Chief
SpaceQ Media Inc.
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The Lead
Canada is officially moving to close one of its strategic vulnerabilities. On April 21, Transport Minister Steven MacKinnon introduced Bill C-28 in the House of Commons, serving as the parliamentary vehicle to enact the long-anticipated Canadian Space Launch Act. By formally amending the Aeronautics Act, the legislation establishes a dedicated, statutory framework to oversee and regulate commercial space launch and re-entry activities from Canadian soil.
While framed publicly as a commercial and economic win, the defence implications of Bill C-28 are foundational. Canada currently stands as the only G7 nation lacking sovereign space launch capabilities, leaving the Department of National Defence (DND) entirely reliant on foreign providers—predominantly the United States—to place critical national security payloads into orbit.
Bill C-28 is the necessary legal architecture required to execute the government’s recent defence investments. Last month, DND announced a historic $200-million, 10-year lease for a dedicated military launch pad at Spaceport Nova Scotia, alongside $24.9 million in initial funding for domestic rocket manufacturers. By transitioning from makeshift regulatory sandboxes to a codified legal regime, Bill C-28 provides the exact regulatory certainty required to operationalize those investments under the banner of the new Defence Industrial Strategy.
Crucially, the legislation solves a massive geopolitical and supply chain bottleneck: International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR). Bill C-28 provides the domestic legal enforcement mechanism needed to uphold the bilateral Technology Safeguards Agreement (TSA) with the United States. This clears the path for American launch providers—and Canadian firms utilizing U.S. components—to operate from domestic sites without violating stringent ITAR restrictions. It guarantees that even in complex geopolitical scenarios where foreign export licenses might be delayed, the Canadian Armed Forces retains an unencumbered, domestic path to orbit.
Furthermore, the bill embeds vital national security safeguards directly into the Aeronautics Act. It grants the Minister of Transport emergency authorities to halt any launch or re-entry activities for reasons of national security. It also introduces critical liability and indemnification frameworks, creating the financial and legal stability necessary to attract the top-tier commercial launch providers that the military will inevitably rely upon.
For the Canadian defence sector, the door to sovereign launch has been opened. The challenge now is moving Bill C-28 through the parliamentary committee stages to ensure Canada’s orbital supply chain is finally secured on home soil.
Read the full breakdown of Bill C-28 and the Canadian Space Launch Act at SpaceQ
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Feature Analysis: USSF 2040 Blueprint and the Era of “Unrestricted Spectrum Warfare”
The United States Space Force (USSF) has released its Future Operating Environment 2040 (FOE) report, delivering a stark assessment of the orbital domain over the next fifteen years. For allied militaries and the defence industrial base, the document serves as a foundational warning: the era of space as a peaceful, supporting domain is over.
The core concept defining this future battlespace is “Unrestricted Spectrum Warfare” (USW). The USSF projects that by 2040, the electromagnetic spectrum (EMS) will transition from a mere instrument of other domains into critical, contested terrain. Future conflicts will not rely solely on kinetic anti-satellite (ASAT) strikes; instead, adversaries will employ a blended, multifaceted approach combining electronic warfare, cyber manipulation, high-power directed energy, and physical disablement. Every frequency, signal, and orbital regime will be targeted, explicitly blurring the lines between military and civilian infrastructure.
China remains the primary pacing threat, driven by an exponential projected expansion of its satellite fleet and a state-driven strategy of military-civil fusion. The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is aggressively developing proliferated low Earth orbit (LEO) constellations for resilient communications, advanced space-based intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) networks, and artificial intelligence-enabled command and control systems.
For allied defence contractors, the FOE 2040 provides a clear procurement roadmap. The USSF explicitly states that future deterrence will rely on “visible resilience, rapid reconstitution, credible attribution, and integrated campaigning with allies”. To survive USW, allied architectures must transition away from exquisite, single-point-of-failure assets toward proliferated, maneuverable, and tactically responsive systems. The deep integration of commercial capacity and allied interoperability is no longer optional—it is a first-order requirement to ensure freedom of action in a fundamentally contested domain.
Tactical Briefs
NordSpace Secures IDEaS Funding for Kestrel VLEO Constellation: Markham-based NordSpace Corp. has been awarded approximately $250,000 in Phase 1 funding from the Department of National Defence (DND) through the Innovation for Defence Excellence and Security (IDEaS) program. Targeting the “Extended communication coverage” challenge, the capital supports the development of “Kestrel,” a proposed Very Low Earth Orbit (VLEO) satellite constellation. Kestrel is designed to provide direct-to-device (D2D) connectivity alongside ultra-high-resolution Earth observation and Space Domain Awareness (SDA) capabilities. Read about NordSpace’s IDEaS award at SpaceQ
CAF Concludes Op NANOOK-NUNALIVUT 2026 with Space Domain Focus: The Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) has successfully concluded Operation NANOOK-NUNALIVUT 2026, the largest winter operation in the Arctic under the broader NANOOK framework. The deployment of 1,300 CAF personnel alongside U.S. and European NATO allies was designed to enhance Canada’s ability to detect threats and defend the Arctic across the land, maritime, air, cyber, and space domains. The operation aligns directly with NATO’s ARCTIC SENTRY vigilance activity, reinforcing collective deterrence and domain awareness in the High North. Read the official release on Operation NANOOK-NUNALIVUT 2026 at Canada.ca
DND Launches IDEaS Challenge for Multi-Modal AI: As allied militaries transition from raw data collection to algorithmic intelligence, DND has introduced a new IDEaS challenge: “Multi-modal AI for advanced situational decisions”. The initiative seeks commercial dual-use solutions capable of fusing disparate data streams—including orbital remote sensing and terrestrial feeds—into actionable, machine-readable intelligence. This directly supports the Canadian Armed Forces’ push to accelerate decision-making architectures and maintain information superiority across contested domains. Read the full story at SpaceQ
CSMC Awarded $1.2M for Nuclear Microreactor Manufacturing: The Canadian Space Mining Corporation (CSMC) has secured a $1.2 million government grant to advance its nuclear microreactor manufacturing capabilities. While primarily targeting commercial space operations and resource extraction, scalable nuclear microreactors represent a highly disruptive dual-use technology. For DND, the ability to deploy autonomous, off-grid power generation is a strategic asset for remote Arctic early-warning outposts and future deep-space infrastructure. Read the details of CSMC’s funding at SpaceQ
NATO DIANA Targets Decision Superiority in New Innovation Challenge: NATO’s Defence Innovation Accelerator for the North Atlantic (DIANA) has launched a new challenge focused on “Decision superiority for NATO warfighters”. The program is actively soliciting commercial start-ups and tech firms to develop systems that synthesize massive volumes of multi-domain data—including space-based ISR—to give allied commanders an asymmetric cognitive advantage. The challenge reinforces the alliance’s pivot toward integrating commercial AI and data processing pipelines directly into the military supply chain. Read the NATO DIANA challenge parameters here
Global Watch
UK Space Command Warns Allies to Step Up on Space Control: Maj. Gen. Paul Tedman, chief of UK Space Command, has issued a stark warning to allied nations: assume the U.S. role in space control will diminish. Speaking on an April 14 panel, Tedman emphasized that allies have historically benefited from U.S.-provided assured space control, but capacity limits mean this dynamic is no longer sustainable. He urged partner nations to increase their own investments and assume a greater share of the burden in defending orbital domains. Read the full report at Space Intel Report
ESA and EDA Launch Joint Earth Observation Defence Study: The European Space Agency (ESA) and the European Defence Agency (EDA) have signed an agreement to jointly identify strategic and technological gaps in Europe’s Earth observation capabilities. Signed in Brussels on April 22, the 18-month study will define technology priorities up to 2040 and beyond to support security and defence missions. The effort directly supports the European Resilience from Space (ERS) initiative and underscores the continent’s aggressive push toward strategic autonomy and sovereign intelligence gathering in a volatile geopolitical climate. Read the official release at the European Space Agency
USSF Embraces Space Mobility and On-Orbit Refueling: Breaking from past skepticism, the U.S. Space Force is fully embracing on-orbit maneuverability and satellite refueling as foundational elements for future orbital warfare. At the mid-April Space Symposium, Chief of Space Operations Gen. Chance Saltzman confirmed the service is collaborating with U.S. Space Command to develop “space tugs” and “high-thrust reusable” orbital transfer vehicles. The shift acknowledges that static constellations are highly vulnerable, driving a new architectural mandate for dynamic space operations and maneuverable platforms. Read the full report at Breaking Defense
Space Force Delivers Final GPS III Satellite: The U.S. Space Force has successfully launched the final satellite in the GPS III series, completing a critical upgrade to its 32-satellite active constellation. Launched from Cape Canaveral on April 21, the GPS III-8 mission reinforces the military’s precision, navigation, and timing (PNT) network. Crucially, the upgraded satellite is equipped with M-Code technology, providing the joint force with signals that are three times as accurate and eight times more resistant to jamming than legacy systems—a vital countermeasure in the face of escalating electronic warfare threats. Read the launch details at the Department of War
Pentagon FY27 Budget Shifts Data Transport to “Space Data Network”: The newly unveiled Fiscal 2027 defense budget signals a major pivot in U.S. military communications architecture. The Space Force is cutting dedicated funding for future tranches of the Space Development Agency’s (SDA) Transport Layer, shifting those resources into a new hybrid architecture dubbed the “Space Data Network” (SDN). Driven by a $1.5 billion research and development funding line, the SDN will fuse bespoke military spacecraft with commercial constellations to fulfill both secure tactical communications and high-throughput data transport requirements. Read the budget breakdown at Air & Space Forces Magazine
Guest Opinion: The Test of Arctic Domain Awareness
As the Department of National Defence funds early-stage concepts for new satellite architectures and AI frameworks to monitor the High North, the strategic purpose of these investments will soon be tested on the international stage.
Writing for Open Canada this week, Dr. Nicole Jackson, an Associate Professor of Security and Governance at Simon Fraser University, analyzes Canada’s strategic positioning ahead of the upcoming NATO Summit in Ankara. She argues that the time for strategic ambiguity in the Arctic has passed, and Canada must push the alliance to prioritize actionable domain awareness. While NATO’s Arctic Sentry initiative provides a framework, Jackson warns that visibility alone is insufficient:
“Domain awareness matters, but not in a narrowly military sense. It means knowing more quickly what is happening across a vast northern space, and ensuring that federal agencies, territorial governments, Indigenous authorities, operators, and local communities can share information and act on it… The real test is whether Arctic Sentry can help allies move from visibility to coordinated action when events are still unclear. In plain terms, that means moving faster from detection to shared assessment, then to precautionary action and recovery.”
For the Canadian space and defence sector, Jackson’s analysis highlights the operational endpoint for current research. Funding VLEO constellation concepts and sovereign launch capacity is not just about advancing hardware capabilities; it is about establishing the rapid detection and shared assessment frameworks required to ensure NATO can actually defend its northern flank.
Read Dr. Jackson’s full analysis on Canada’s Arctic posture at Open Canada
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