Late last month, MDA Space announced the Department of National Defence awarded a standing offer for a partnership including both the Brampton-based company, and Pembroke, Ont. space and defence company ThothX Group.
The standing offer is for “enhanced space situation awareness” which MDA said is important given both the need to protect Canadian satellites in orbit as well as the rising number of satellites there. Of course, a standing offer is not a signed contract, but it presents potential.
“It is an offer from a potential supplier to provide goods or services at pre-arranged prices, under set terms and conditions. Once the government issues a call-up against the standing offer, it then becomes a contract,” the CanadaBuys website explains.
The partnership aims to examine “satellites and space objects” in geosynchronous orbit, roughly 36,000 km above Earth, joining coverage through radar by Thoth Technology and operations and data management from MDA. SpaceQ spoke with MDA to learn more about what this deal presents, and a spokesperson provided answers by email Wednesday (Oct. 1).
The partnership is described as a “direct evolution” of a strategic cooperation agreement between Thoth Technology and MDA that SpaceQ reported on back in 2023, which aimed to provide “a first-of-its kind, fully Canadian space-domain awareness (SDA) capability.”
The standing offer, the spokesperson added, is an operational framework that allows the two companies to give SDA services for Canada’s defence community. MDA describes the new standing offer for the commercial technology as “supporting Canada’s sovereignty and security objectives in the increasingly congested, contested and competitive space domain.”
SDA is a highly competitive market these days, as countries around the world are boosting their defence spending generally, and the NATO alliance is looking to increase its partnership obligations in line with U.S. priorities.
Russia has been accused repeatedly of jamming GPS signals, with reports especially emerging after their Ukraine invasion began in 2022. And as Reuters recently reported, China, Russia and the U.S. have all tested anti-satellite weapons and sent maneuverable spacecraft aloft in recent years.
“Global momentum behind SDA is accelerating, and we see this reflected in recent defence spending announcements, as well as evolving NATO and NORAD priorities,” the MDA spokesperson wrote. “Governments and military alliances are increasingly recognizing that space is now a critical operational domain, and SDA is foundational to both national security and allied operations.”
NATO declared space an “operational domain” back in 2019, and MDA’s spokesperson said the company will “anticipate sustained and growing demand for SDA capabilities and services” for the next while.
Against the competition, MDA plans to be “leveraging our Canadian leadership, operational experience, and proven ability to deliver mission-critical SDA solutions,” and the company also pointed out it has been involved in Canada’s SDA for a long time.
MDA’s Sapphire, the first dedicated Canadian SDA satellite, launched in 2013 for the Department of National Defence. MDA has been accruing defence-related “operational solutions for complex space missions” for years as well, the spokesperson said. Thoth, the spokesperson added, provides “cutting-edge ground radar capabilities.” All of this gives MDA and Thoth together “a more complete, resilient, and sovereign view of the space environment.”
To be sure, the new standing offer is not the only defence-related announcement MDA made in the last quarter or so. In August, for example, MDA received two contracts for uncrewed aircraft systems for the Royal Canadian Navy. And in June, MDA received an extension to a previous contract with Fisheries and Oceans Canada related to maritime satellite surveillance.
MDA’s financial performance also earned it a spot on the TSX30 on Sept. 9, just the day after the company announced it would not receive an expected EchoStar constellation contract previously announced on August 1. At the time, MDA officials noted the contract cancellation was completely due to a “sudden change to EchoStar’s business strategy and plan in the wake of spectrum allocation discussions with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)” – you can read more about what happened in this past SpaceQ article. But the point is, MDA’s business is continuing to grow in part due to the work on defence, so it will be interesting to see how much this new standing offer will contribute to that line of their business in the coming years.