Maritime Launch Services (MLS) is preparing to accommodate larger medium-class rockets as well, it said Friday with its third-quarter results. It also plans to ask shareholders early next year to consolidate a stock that has traded below a dollar all year.
Revenue for the three months to Sept. 30 was $5.6 million, level with the second quarter, when MLS earned its first operating profit, and net income rose 9 per cent to $3.5 million from $3.2 million. Lower professional fees, and the end of a one-time charge for paying off an Export Development Canada loan early in April, more than made up for higher wages as the company hired. About 99 per cent of the revenue comes from the Department of National Defence (DND) launch pad lease, which counts in equal monthly slices.
More launch interest
Maritime Launch now plans four launch pads at Spaceport Nova Scotia, near Canso, N.S. One is operational and has handled the suborbital flights so far, while the other three are being developed with customers in 2026 and 2027. The company says it can add pads beyond those four, either to let more launch companies operate from the site or to take different kinds of rockets, including medium-class ones. In its outlook, the company said it is talking to more launch companies than this phase has pads for, with payloads from 150 kilograms to more than 15,000 kg.
The company calls room for medium-class rockets, those able to lift a tonne or more, “a primary goal,” and says the Province of Nova Scotia has already approved it for construction. Isar Aerospace‘s Spectrum, due to fly from the site in 2028, carries up to 1,000 kg to low Earth orbit, about 7 per cent of the largest payloads in those talks.
In its quarterly report, Maritime Launch argues that medium rockets suit constellation operators, who need to replace failed satellites in batches, and that limits on future bookings for established heavy-lift rockets could push more customers toward newer spaceports. Ottawa wants Canadian medium-lift rockets too, and Budget 2026 made them a formal goal, with DND managing dedicated launch and test facilities.
Power and fibre being added
Local trades have started on the foundation of a utility hub, which will gather power and services at one central point before they are run out to the pads. Nova Scotia Power won a contract in October to bring up to 3 megawatts from Canso, along with a Bell fibre line, with work due to start within 60 days. The security building at the site entrance is out to tender this month, and clearing is planned for December.
The road to Isar’s pad was finished Nov. 1, in time for a contractual deadline, and the two companies are now laying out Isar’s section of a shared integration facility, where rockets and satellites are readied for launch. The launch control centre is still at the preliminary design stage.
On Nov. 4, Maritime Launch closed on 115 acres just south of the Crown land it leases, paying cash, after buying 71 acres at Portage Cove in May. The province also agreed in writing on Oct. 14 to lengthen the notice either side must give to cancel the Crown lease from 60 days to a year, though the change has yet to be written into the lease.
The company, which has 13 full-time employees, this week made Sarah McLean, a founding member of its leadership team, chief operating officer as it builds toward orbital launches.
Isar’s first payment is still waiting
Maritime Launch and Isar pushed the Sept. 1 date for their statement of work, the detailed plan for building Isar’s pad, to mid-September and finished it in time. Full orbital readiness is still targeted for the first quarter of 2028.
Maritime Launch has still not counted any of Isar’s money as revenue. Isar’s first quarterly payment, $5.3 million ($US 3.75 million), arrived in August and sits on the balance sheet as deferred revenue, because no lease had started by Sept. 30 and the accounting for the deal was not yet settled when the statements were approved. So DND’s share of revenue is about where it was last quarter, and the company notes that DND has put up no guarantee for its payments, though the department has so far paid ahead of schedule.
Maritime Launch ended September with $29.4 million in cash, up 30 per cent from $22.6 million in June, but deferred revenue, payment for pad access the company has yet to provide, came to $23.7 million, equal to about 80 per cent of that cash. “We feel we are well funded with over $29 million in cash on the balance sheet and contractual payments from our launch partners,” president and chief executive Stephen Matier said in the release.
DND pays $20 million a contract year and had paid $30 million by Sept. 30. Isar makes four quarterly payments in its first year, 13 per cent of the contract’s total value, then nothing for 30 months — from July 2027 to October 2029 — before its fees resume. Maritime Launch also expects to start claiming about $31.2 million in approved Nova Scotia capital investment tax credits in 2027.
$ millions Q3 2026 Q2 2026 Q3 2025 Revenue 5.57 5.59 — Total operating expenses 2.12 2.26 0.54 Income (loss) from operations 3.45 3.32 (0.54) Net income (loss) 3.52 3.23 (5.75) Basic and diluted earnings (loss) per share ($) 0.00 0.00 (0.01) Cash, end of period 29.43 22.60 0.08 Deferred revenue, end of period 23.67 18.86 n/d Total assets 52.06 42.79 13.98 Shareholders’ equity (deficiency) 24.41 20.82 (6.44)
What a share consolidation means
Maritime Launch expects to call a special meeting in the first quarter of 2027 to approve a share consolidation, with the board left to pick the ratio. The company says fewer, higher-priced shares would be easier to sell to investors and to trade, and would give it more ways to raise money.
It has plenty of shares to consolidate. Maritime Launch had 767.9 million outstanding on Nov. 10, the legacy of years spent raising money at pennies a share. The number of shares rose 78 per cent in 2025 alone, with 77 per cent of that increase arriving in November, when old convertible debt was turned into about 209 million shares after MDA Space invested $10 million.
A consolidation shrinks that number without changing what anyone owns. If the board chose one new share for every 10 old ones, for example, a shareholder holding 10,000 shares at 46 cents would end up with 1,000 shares at $4.60, and the company would have about 77 million shares instead of 768 million. Options and warrants are normally adjusted the same way.
Maritime Launch moved to the TSX on Nov. 3, and share price is one of the tests for joining the S&P/TSX Composite, Canada’s main stock index. A company needs a volume-weighted average price of at least $1 over the previous three months, as well as meeting size and trading requirements. As SpaceQ reported when the listing was approved, it also needs six full calendar months on the exchange, so mid-2027 is the earliest Maritime Launch could qualify. Its shares closed at 46 cents Thursday, up 64 per cent since the end of 2025 but 33 per cent below their 69-cent April peak.
What to watch
INNOSPACE, the South Korean company that signed a letter of intent in March to bring its HANBIT rocket to the site, set December as its deadline to turn that into a formal agreement. The special meeting and the consolidation ratio come in the first quarter, and Isar’s payments stay out of revenue until the company settles how to account for the deal.
Further out, Isar’s first Spectrum launch from Nova Scotia is targeted for 2028, and Reaction Dynamics is aiming for its first orbital flight from the site around the third quarter of that year.