GATINEAU, Que. — Defence is a major theme of the Space Canada SpaceBound conference in Gatineau this year, with nearly every panel touching upon it. Here are some notable moments discussing defence from various panels on Tuesday, Oct. 20 and Wednesday, Oct. 21.
McGuinty: Government pledges $20M for NordSpace
David McGuinty, Canada’s minister of national defence, announced at SpaceBound that NordSpace will receive a $20 million, 10-year facility access agreement with the Department of National Defence (DND) for the Atlantic Spaceport Complex (ASX) in Newfoundland and Labrador.
“It lets us and our partners use the site for launches and research and development over the next 10 years,” McGuinty said in a speech. “Sovereign launch means Canada can replace damaged or threatened systems on our own terms and on our own timelines,” he added, but alluding to the Launch the North rocket-development initiative, noted that the small satellites and launch vehicles coming online will be “where we start; they’re not where we stop.”
Pointing to Canada’s Defence Industrial Strategy, McGuinty said more investments will be crucial. “Our people in uniform need to see, communicate, and act on our own terms, particularly across Canada’s northern approaches. That’s why space is a priority,” he said. “It’s why we’re investing in four key areas: monitoring and surveillance, space domain awareness, secure satellite communications, and sovereign space launch.”
The NordSpace agreement gives DND priority access for one of ASX’s launch pads, and NordSpace said in its release the funding will cover minimum spending for facilities, systems, and “standby readiness,” although not the missions, which will be covered under separate contracts.
RCAF: Building military capability brings industrial capability
During a fireside chat, Brig.-Gen. Brendan Cook, the Royal Canadian Air Force’s (RCAF) director general of space, combat and support, made an argument tying together sovereignty and industry opportunities. While the discussion was extensive, the moderator said on-stage that this was a notable quote:
“It’s difficult to — in this global economy, where things are produced all around the world and then brought together for a final capability—to really kind of sometimes put your finger on that. But if you can make sure that the intellectual property that we’re building is for staying in Canada, that the high-end jobs and even some of the touch-labour jobs are being done in Canada, that then creates a situation where we’re building not just a military capability, but industrial capability. And industrial capacity is about building options for government, for their sovereign choices in the future. A strong economy, that’s underpinned with a strong military. That’s what gives Canada the choice to make options when it wants to.”
Canadian space companies call for capital
A panel of Canadian space companies had a lengthy discussion about defence opportunities, including calls for more capital and a spending plan for that capital. Here is a quote from each one of the panel representatives:
Chris Pogue, Calian, president of defence and space
“There’s two missing pieces that really come to me. One is the ability to attract additional capital. We can’t rely singularly on government funding for these sorts of programs, and I think space is uniquely positioned by virtue of the breadth of dual use applications to draw additional funding, in that then becomes leveraged by defence for the defence-specific things … The second thing that I think we’re going to face is just the thing all of us are facing, which is where does [it] come from? Where are the people that are going to deliver on the vision that the minister spoke to? And so capital alone won’t solve that.”
Dave Musson, Lunar Medical, CEO and co-founder
“The government programs are small. They’re hard to access. They’re not consistent from year to year. Most of us who run small companies spend most of our time chasing capital, chasing grants, chasing contracts, trying to find funds to match funds with. So I think it’s a culture of not having enough funding flowing, not knowing how to spend it, not knowing how to sustain programs, and I think as a result of that, the smaller companies have lower ambitions. We’re trying to compete in a funding-poor environment, rather than being global competitors. So that’s a leap, I think, for any company that’s starting.”
Ahmad Khorchid, Innovation for Defence Excellence and Security (IDEaS), director of R&D innovation operations
“When you invest deeply, that also means divest deliberately for other things, so you can focus effort that way. That’s going to be really important. And then, how can we kind of in the ecosystem—as we do this work—break the artificial barriers that have always existed between the separation of R&D innovation from capital acquisition? So how can we bring as early as possible, Canada’s brand innovators with Canada’s problem owners operationally, and at the same time with those partners responsible for transition, acquisition as early as possible? The value of that only exists because these things happen separately, and it’s an afterthought on what has traditionally in Canada been focused on a technology-maturation mindset. Let’s get the technology out there, but technology alone does not lead you to capabilities.”
Jeremy Perrin, Connektica, CEO and co-founder
“Right now, we’re talking about building capacity. When you talk about building capacity, it is unique to manufacture and scale. So it’s very important to try to convince engineers on the low TRL level, low technology readiness level—when they are still designing a product, they need to consider what we call the family design for manufacturing, assembly, integration.”
Frederic Grandmont, ABB, technology & business development manager
“This answer has to be answered by the people, you know, in the Force. But I’d like them to make that choice with the good knowledge from the industry, the Canadian capacity. There’s a tendency to replicate what’s been done by the U.S. You know, that the U.S. is such ahead of the game in terms of defence spending and equipment that we try, or we tend to look at what we did: the price of certain program, or another program, and then reconsider: Can we do this or can we not?”
Space Force’s plan for working with Canada
Col. Andrew Anderson, director of plans, programs and requirements for U.S. Space Forces – Northern, shared a four-point plan for the countries to work together.
- Boost shared awareness. “We need better integration across space, air, maritime, and subsurface domains. We need to connect sensors, data, people, and decision making. The objective is not simply to create more data; it’s to provide trusted and timely information that gives leaders the ability to make sound decisions.”
- Do more joint exercises. “We should continue to use Arctic exercises and operational activities to test the conditions that we may actually face. Degraded communications, delayed data, constrained navigation support, difficult weather, and long distances. If we wait to test resilience until a crisis, we have waited too long.”
- Integrate resilience into defence systems. “That means considering redundancy, alternative communication paths, local data storage and onboard autonomy, manual procedures, and trained operators. Resilience cannot be an afterthought; it must be a requirement.”
- Look to complementary work between the two countries. “Our strength comes from each nation contributing distinct capabilities and expertise to a shared security architecture. That means modernizing sensors, improving Arctic communications, building greater space domain awareness, strengthening ground infrastructure, developing skilled personnel, and improving data integration, and supporting an innovative industrial base that can deliver capability at the speed required by the environment. Canada’s pursuit of greater domestic space capacity, including sovereign launch capability and [Telesat] Lightspeed are exciting examples of that broader opportunity, and I’m seeing it here at this conference: Canadian satellites, sensors, ground stations, communication networks, cybersecurity, data services, operations centers, skilled people in the industrial base required to sustain all of it.”