While US companies have SDA services a-plenty, a new contract from the US’ northern neighbor is focusing on buying Canadian.
Montreal-based NorthStar Earth & Space will put SDA sensors on Toronto’s Kepler Communications spacecraft, the companies announced Wednesday. The goal of the partnership is to grow their collaboration (and the network) to “meet the demand for real-time SDA.”
This announcement comes as SpaceX opens its SSA catalog gratis to smallsat operators, and LeoLabs readies to demo its SDA for US national-security missions under a $20.68M Space Force Prototype OTA.
Scanning the skies: NorthStar is expected to go public via SPAC next quarter, driven by the strength of its cross-border SDA sales using NorthStar’s own optical sat sensors, along with RF and ground-radar observations from third parties.
In Canada, the company inked a $40M+ CDN (~$29M+) SDA deal in July with the Royal Canadian Air Force’s 3 Canadian Space Division (the Canadian equivalent of the US Space Force). The country, the press release stated, “must remain steadfast in maintaining the ability to independently monitor and protect its assets in orbit.”
Cross-border collab: While trade relations are tense between the US and Canada—and Canada is investing more in its launchers and spaceports for military reasons—space continues to be a platform for collaboration.
- NorthStar has a US division, which is part of DARPA’s Space-WATCH program.
- Kepler recently completed a proof-of-concept laser-link demo for the Space Development Agency, selected US launcher Rocket Lab for Kepler’s first dedicated launch mission NET 2028, and activated its commercial data-relay service for global customers.
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