GATINEAU, Que. – Canada will spend $15 million for Xona to open a new hub in Montreal to develop a sovereign satellite system focused on positioning, timing and navigation (PNT), the government announced today (Oct. 20).
Speaking at Space Canada’s SpaceBound conference for industry, Minister of Industry Mélanie Joly said Xona Space Systems would receive the money with the eventual goal of developing a sovereign GPS.
Xona raised a $170 million USD ($239 million CDN) Series C earlier this year, led by Mohari Ventures Natural Capital, to more rapidly scale its Pulsar constellation for PNT. The company is based in Burlingame, Calif., but has a Canadian presence in Montreal, and says its Pulsar satellites will bring “real-time, centimetre-level certainty to any device, anywhere on Earth.” Xona launched a single demonstration satellite in 2025 and sent two more aloft on the SpaceX Bandwagon-5 mission earlier today.
“The $15 million project is to really anchor Xona in Canada for the long run,” Joly told SpaceQ during a post-announcement media scrum, in response to a question about the benefits to Canada. She said the funding would lead to job creation, and that the entire command-and-control system will be based in Canada for sovereignty reasons. “It will be one of the good startups that we can scale, and that we see great potential in,” Joly added, noting co-founder and CTO Tyler Reid is from Montreal.
Joly told SpaceBound attendees that the funding is meant to work alongside other government efforts to boost the industry.
- A new Canadian Space Agency (CSA) president is awaiting Cabinet ratification, Joly said, with an announcement expected in the coming days.
- Former CSA astronaut Jeremy Hansen, Joly also announced, will serve as special adviser to the prime minister and Joly on a new national space strategy.
- Joly also reiterated she will find a mission assignment for agency astronaut Jenni Gibbons (backup to Hansen’s Artemis II moon mission, among other positions) within the next year, if possible.
After the speech, Joly did not indicate to SpaceQ specifics for how to bring Gibbons’ assignment forward, such as whether to bring her to space with NASA (which is dependent on CSA funding arrangements and MoUs with NASA, among other things) or with private industry. Joly did note, however, the assignment would be “very ambitious.”
Joly also did not say whether the CSA would receive a baseline increase to funding – which has largely remained flat, aside from special-project allocations such as for Canadarm3 – to support these new initiatives. That said, Joly told SpaceQ that Defence Industrial Strategy investments to the CSA have amounted to more than $400 million, which she said is an “incredible boost” in the meantime. Joly did not offer specifics, but a possible example is new funding for European Space Agency (ESA) programs, which the CSA’s 2026–27 plan ties to the Defence Industrial Strategy.
“Our goal is to be able to continue to increase the budgets, but meanwhile, we have to work closely with industry, and we need to make sure that, yes, we create more jobs for our investments in space. We create more intellectual property that we can scale our companies,” Joly said.
SpaceBound, in its fifth year, has a greater focus on sovereignty and security in 2026 in line with worldwide trends. U.S. and European Union companies have raised several nine-figure rounds this year for defence opportunities ranging from PNT to Golden Dome.
Lending urgency to the push, the U.S. recently revealed there are weapons in orbit. Brig.-Gen. Christopher Horner, who leads 3 Canadian Space Division, told SpaceBound attendees the weapons revelation is “terrifying” but emphasized the goal by the U.S. is to set “norms and conditions” for behaviour in space. “We can call out improper behaviour in hopes of being more transparent, and transparency allows us to avoid miscalculation,” he said.
He added that the goal is to move past the fact of there being weapons in space, instead focusing on “how we choose to move forward, that I think is incredibly important.” Horner did not elaborate on that plan, as he next paid tribute to the four Canadian Armed Forces personnel killed and 39 wounded in a deadly fire at Wainwright, Alta., this past week. While discussing the sacrifice, he said the personnel knew that “you have to take calculated risks to develop the skills necessary that when called upon by your country, you can deliver the effects that are required to deter, defend, and ultimately defeat your adversary.”
As for the defence strategy, Joly said more Canadian space industry financing opportunities will be released later this week, and Horner said rapid funding will be critical for companies working on their “risk calculus” for investing in expensive, multi-year projects.
“If we become mired in the bureaucracy of procurement … we will fail each other,” Horner said. “We will fail to deliver on the mandate that Canadians have set out for all of us.”