N.S. Spaceport Ramps Up, Hires Several Local Companies Ahead Of Construction
CANSO, N.S. — The company planning to launch rockets into space from coastal Nova Scotia is ramping up operations on the heels of a big investment.
Maritime Launch Services (MLS) closed a $10.5 million financing deal with Toronto’s PowerOne Capital Markets earlier this month.
MLS has since gone on a hiring blitz, turning to several Nova Scotian companies as it prepares to build a $140-million spaceport in Canso.
The company is already doing preliminary work at the future site of its complex and will begin construction in earnest this fall.
On May 26, MLS said it has brought on several local companies to help in that effort. Strum Consulting, Lloyd’s Register, Nova Construction, Lindsay Construction Management, and St. Francis Xavier University’s FluxLab will all be a part of the project.
Steve Matier is the president and CEO of MLS. He told Huddle the spaceport project is beginning to come together in a tangible way.
“We’ve reached this point now that we’re really starting to, you know, put the pedal to the metal … and starting to ramp up,” he said.
MLS was founded in 2016 and has planned to construct a spaceport in Canso since 2017. The company had initially planned for its first launch to happen in 2019 but has pushed that date several times.
Once it’s complete, MLS’s spaceport will use rockets about a third the height of a wind turbine (39 metres) to launch satellites into space for commercial companies.
The rockets will be able to carry about five tons’ worth of satellites into orbit. Matier says MLS is looking to serve “the constellation market”— essentially laying a string of small, interconnected satellites around Earth.
“Imagine it as sort of a fishnet around the globe, 1,000 kilometers out, and at each node in that fishnet is the satellite and they’re all talking to each other, building this constellation of data exchange between them,” he explains.
Those networks can be used to provide wifi to remote areas, keep track of sea ice melting, or help self-driving cars navigate.
With MLS on the verge of starting construction, Matier says he hopes the spaceport will be a boon to the province’s economy.
“This is going to have a real economic impact and benefit for jobs and in Canso, in Guysborough and Antigonish — in Nova Scotia, in general,” he said.
The construction of the spaceport will bring lots of temporary jobs to the region but Maiter says it will also establish Nova Scotia as a player in the commercial space industry.
As Matier likes to point out, MLS’s Canso spaceport will be one of the only fully commercial launch operations in the world.
“If you were to look around the globe right now at the launch sites that are out there, almost all of them at some level or other are government-owned and controlled,” he says. “We’re a commercial initiative and we have a commercial offering — and I think that’s the real game-changer.”
“It’s about really, you know, bootstrapping a new industry that’s just been budding here in Nova Scotia,” he adds.
Matier says the province already has “a pretty good aerospace cluster” but that a launch site in Nova Scotia will be “a game-changer.”
He says Canadian programs are churning out talented graduates that are excelling in the aerospace world.
“But where are all these kids going? They’re leaving, they’re going to the States, they’re going to New Zealand, they’re going elsewhere because they don’t have a place to go here. So this is that huge opportunity to really keep some people home,” he says.
MLS plans to launch its first rocket in 2022.
That initial launch will be a “small-class launcher.” Once that’s complete, the company plans to “mature” its launch site as it prepares for what will be its main launch vehicle: medium-class, Cyclone 4M rockets.
Matier says MLS is aiming to launch Cyclone 4M rockets by 2023 or 2024. Eventually, the company hopes to launch eight-to-10 rockets a year.