Polaris Aerospace, the Montreal startup a court order pushed out of the federal Launch the North challenge in January, said Thursday it will test a new liquid rocket engine this winter as it moves forward as a launch vehicle developer. The company also added Maritime Launch Services founder Stephen Matier as a strategic adviser.
Polaris Aerospace says it is developing “scalable, ITAR-free, orbital launch vehicles,” meaning free of U.S. International Traffic in Arms Regulations export controls. Work on a proprietary engine built for mass production is “well underway,” alongside a new vehicle design and manufacturing plan meant to build larger orbital rockets “in a fraction of the time and cost of traditional aerospace programs.”
Co-founder and chief executive Oleg Khalimonov said in the release that “global competitors are all racing to duplicate SpaceX using complex technologies and bottlenecked manufacturing,” while Polaris is “changing the fundamental economics of how rockets are built.” “The launch industry does not need another expensive ‘Ferrari’, it needs a reliable workhorse,” he said.
Khalimonov said the winter demonstration “will never have been done before by a commercial space company” and “has the potential to completely flip the script on rocket development worldwide.”
Khalimonov told SpaceQ in an email the company is “taking some proven technologies originally developed during the Apollo and Saturn V era” and “combining them with some unique modern innovations to drastically reduce development time and optimize for scalability.” Polaris has “introduced several innovations to both the engine and the overall system architecture, allowing us to dramatically simplify the vehicle and enable rapid, scalable production,” he said.
He said details would come later, describing the approach only as “drawing on decades of established rocket engineering” while “simplifying the vehicle, reducing manufacturing complexity, and making the technology scalable.”
“You’d be surprised how simple you can make a rocket engine,” he said.
Defence veteran Hoang-Cao joins a team of former university colleagues
Matthieu Hoang-Cao, Polaris’s co-founder and chief technology officer, said in the release that “transitioning a rocket program from R&D into a high-rate industrial production line requires designing for simplicity and resilience from Day One.” The release says he served 10 years in the Canadian Armed Forces and has industrial experience in research and development and production-line scaling.
Khalimonov told SpaceQ most of the wider team are Space Concordia alumni who “met and previously worked together in University,” then “moved on to work for rocket companies abroad, or other industries here in Canada.” Polaris is bringing them back “specifically for this opportunity,” he said.
Khalimonov led Space Concordia‘s Starsailor rocket program, first as a student and then as a Concordia University employee. Starsailor launched on Aug. 15, 2025, from a site north of Mistissini, Que., and broke apart about 23 seconds into flight, short of space.
The release credits Khalimonov with Canada’s record for the largest liquid rocket engine developed and fired, and with leading the launch of the world’s largest amateur rocket. Starsailor’s Stewart engine produced about 35 kilonewtons of thrust and was pressure-fed, meaning tank pressure rather than pumps pushed the propellants into the engine.
Concordia’s injunction ended Polaris’s Launch the North bid
Polaris submitted a proposal in December 2025 to Launch the North, the Department of National Defence challenge meant to build a Canadian launch capability. On Jan. 8, the Superior Court of Quebec granted Concordia a provisional injunction ordering Polaris and Khalimonov to withdraw the proposal, stop using university intellectual property and confidential information tied to Starsailor, and stop claiming rights to it, SpaceQ reported.
The court found Concordia had a strong prima facie case, a preliminary finding made before a full hearing. Khalimonov and Polaris argued in court filings that they “did not use any Starsailor documentation to prepare this bid,” because an orbital rocket is “fundamentally different” from Starsailor, which Khalimonov described as “an unguided single stage suborbital rocket.”
Maritime Launch founder signs on as strategic adviser
Matier is the founder, president and chief executive of Maritime Launch Services, which is developing Spaceport Nova Scotia near Canso, N.S. The release says he joined Polaris after “a comprehensive evaluation” of its business model and design.
“Having spent decades in the spaceflight and launch sector, it is rare to see a team rethink rocket architecture from first principles with such ruthless focus on unit economics, operational simplicity, and manufacturability,” Matier said in the release.
Asked whether Matier or MLS has invested in Polaris, Khalimonov said: “We’ve been seeing a lot of success recently, but we cannot share any details yet.” He said the company has been “fortunate to attract serious players” and is “putting the right strategic partnerships in place.”
Khalimonov said Polaris has “some pretty exciting things in the works that we will share soon.” The winter test should give the first public look at the engine itself.