Canada is ready to give its young launch industry a boost.
The country will upgrade its rockets to medium lift as part of its Launch the North initiative, which is aiming to support sovereign rockets flying from at least two nascent spaceports on Canada’s east coast. The timeline for the upgrade is not clear, however; the smaller rockets are expected to get off the ground in 2028.
Canada’s C$142B ($100B) federal budget five-year-spending projection, released late Thursday, officially put money behind the previously announced rocket spending plans. The budget also promised new rockets, a sovereign “rocket-propulsion ecosystem,” and defense-department backed launch and testing.
The Eh-ther: Canada used to fly government-supported sounding rockets many decades ago. But the country’s launch industry largely went into hibernation, instead pouring its space dollars into robotics and medicine—to great success. But lower launch costs and rising national support—and a launch vacuum looming in Canada’s neighbor to the south—is presenting an opportunity.
- Earlier this year, the defense department awarded over 10 years C$200M ($141M) to Maritime Launch Services’ Spaceport Nova Scotia, as well as C$20M ($14M), exclusive of individual launch-contract costs, to NordSpace’s Atlantic Spaceport Complex.
- Launch the North also started up in 2026, with an initial bout of ~C$25M ($17.6M) spread between small rockets developed by Canada Rocket Company, NordSpace, and Reaction Dynamics.
- Last month, Minister of National Defence David McGuinty promised to go bigger: Small rockets are “where we start; they’re not where we stop,” he said of rocket size at Canada’s major industry conference, Space Canada’s SpaceBound.
Mapleverse: Canada’s Defence Industrial Strategy, minted nearly a year ago, lists launch as one of the country’s top seven priorities—along with tech like quantum computing that also has space applications.
And Canadian companies are responding, because they are aware SpaceX’s coming retirement of the Falcon 9 will present a market gap in medium-lift rockets. Canada Rocket Company, NordSpace, and Reaction Dynamics have all discussed or unveiled prototypes of that size.
Canada’s defense-heavy budget only made a few other mentions of space, but those mentions show the country is watching global trends: for example, a mention of “weapons in orbit” is said to be a factor in drone dollars, while “space surveillance” is being promised to British Columbia on the opposite coast from Canada’s spaceports.
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