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Canada's NordSpace and ProtoSpace are driving the country's innovative space industry with the goal of achieving the first orbital rocket launch from Canadian soil. NordSpace CEO Rahul Goel and ProtoSpace Chairman Doug Milbourn speak with Space.com.
Transcript
00:00At a coastal site on the southeastern tip of Newfoundland, a brand new rocket is nearly
00:04ready for flight.
00:05It was built entirely in Canada, fueled by kerosene and ambition, and spearheaded by
00:09a startup with its eyes on orbit.
00:12Nord Space is on track to conduct the first commercial liquid-fueled rocket launch in
00:16Canadian history, a suborbital shot scheduled for mid-August.
00:20Rooting for the company behind the scenes is ProtoSpace, an aerospace manufacturing
00:24arm of Canadian firm ProtoCase, boasting high-velocity production and delivery of specialized space-grade
00:29components within two to three days, compared to industry norms of weeks or months.
00:34Together, Nord Space and ProtoSpace represent a growing push to establish a domestic space
00:38industry in Canada that supports its own launch infrastructure, source manufacturing, and orbital
00:43launch capability.
00:44Rahul Goel is CEO and co-founder of Nord Space.
00:48It has played a long and important role in space, but it's kind of taken a major step
00:55back in the last decade or two, where we've kind of mainly been playing a participatory
01:00role instead of a leadership one, and one of the biggest gaps in our value chain has
01:03always been launch.
01:06Despite a storied history in robotics and space contributions, such as Canada Arm, Dexter,
01:10Radarsat, and others, Canada has never launched anything to orbit from its own soil.
01:14Nord Space aims to change that.
01:17The company's Tyga rocket isn't going to reach orbit when it launches in August, but it's
01:20a big step toward the company's ultimate goal.
01:25It's a launch launch vehicle capable of carrying just over 110 pounds above the Karman line.
01:29This summer's shakedown cruise will be a low-altitude demonstration of Tyga's capabilities.
01:33You know, we get this win under our belts, and then we'll attempt a second flight later
01:37this year or early next year to demonstrate its full capability.
01:41That capability extends beyond just Nord Space's launch vehicle.
01:45Part of Tyga's success will point to a larger accomplishment Nord Space is hoping to achieve, proving
01:50that it's possible to launch a Canadian-built rocket carrying Canadian payloads from a Canadian
01:54spaceport.
01:55Nord Space has set what it regards as a steady, realistic pace for itself as it keeps its
01:59eyes on orbit.
02:00The company plans to follow this summer's launch with a second Tyga flight in 2026,
02:05a full hypersonic space shot mission.
02:08After that comes Tundra, an orbital vehicle comparable to Rocket Lab's Electron rocket,
02:12which will be capable of launching 1,100 pounds to low-Earth orbit and 550 pounds to
02:17sun-synchronous orbit.
02:18Nord Space hopes to debut Tundra in late 2027.
02:22Nord Space's Atlantic Spaceport Complex, ASX, in Newfoundland is located at 46 degrees
02:27latitude, allowing the range to potentially support a wide variety of launch inclinations.
02:32Goel says the company will launch Tundra as a pathfinder vehicle within the small payload
02:36market for a couple of years while simultaneously developing an even bigger rocket.
02:40By the end of the decade, we're doing at least one launch a month.
02:44We think that's a lot more reasonable than new companies coming out of the gate who say
02:47they're going to launch 50 times a year.
02:49In the 2030s, Nord Space plans to scale to Titan, a five-ton Toledo reusable rocket aimed
02:55at matching the capabilities of launch vehicles like SpaceX's Falcon 9.
02:59We're really treating Canada as a pathfinder market.
03:01Our estimation is that we can have about four to seven launches of our launch vehicle just
03:06with Canadian payloads, and a lot of them national security focused.
03:10They all have to go south of the border or otherwise.
03:13Goel says he estimates ASX can support several launches a year just with Canadian payloads.
03:19In fact, Canadian payloads, specifically national security payloads, are one of the driving
03:24motivations for Canada to support its own orbital launch capabilities.
03:28They're the ones who really are sending the strongest demand signals that, hey, look, this
03:32will be really important from a national security standpoint.
03:34Space is increasingly a warfighting domain.
03:36We're not excited about relying on foreign partners, no matter how close they may be,
03:41to get our assets to space.
03:43We have all these payloads that kind of just sit on shelves.
03:46Let's just toss them on your rocket and get them up there.
03:49Goel says that Nord Space could be positioned to address an international launch market sometime
03:53in the tail end of the early 2030s.
03:55Nord Space is developing all of its rockets in-house, including the engines powering them.
04:00Tyga's first stage Hadfield engines and second stage Garneau engines are 3D printed,
04:05regeneratively cooled, additively manufactured, and tested at Nord Space's own facility
04:10two hours east of its headquarters.
04:12While Nord Space is building its rockets, Protospace is helping to speed up Canadian innovation
04:17and manufacturing to support a budding rocket and aerospace industry.
04:20At first, Goel assumed Nord Space would need to import a lot.
04:24Then, he and his team looked around.
04:26We have a very robust industrial base here.
04:29When we started Nord Space, we had no idea that we'd identify ten minutes within our radius
04:36about five companies that are providing mission-critical components to the engine assemblies
04:41for Raptor and Merlin engines.
04:45Merlin engines power SpaceX's Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy launchers,
04:48and Raptors power the company's new Starship rocket.
04:50Doug Milburn serves as chairman for Protospace,
04:53which specializes in high-velocity, mass-custom manufacturing,
04:57known for delivering certified ITAR and Canadian goods program-compliant aerospace parts
05:02in days instead of weeks.
05:04Those who win in innovation are those who get velocity.
05:07Milburn warns companies of hampering their own progress by stifling engineering teams' momentum
05:12with multiple purchasing routes for an increasing amount of smaller,
05:15more specialized parts required for whatever project they take on.
05:18You know, if you look at the cost of a part to an aerospace team,
05:21like people like Raul, your engineers are your cost.
05:25It's not the parts. It's your engineers.
05:28You know, we'll see an old-school aerospace, you know, put a bid package out for development parts.
05:34The amount of money for your engineers to put in a bid package, your purchases to work on it,
05:38it dwarfs the cost of the individual parts a lot of the time.
05:42But the minute you start getting in the way of your development team's velocity,
05:47you've just thrown a wrench into things.
05:49You've upped your costs, and you've dropped your odds of success.
05:52That's what Protospace is.
05:54You know, as a result, we play for a bunch of the big guys,
05:57and then we have these incredibly exciting startups like Raul,
06:02and his company is just really, really cool, doing some really neat stuff.
06:07Milburn says Canada's aerospace sector is more extensive than it's given credit for.
06:11There's the core stuff that tends to be done company by company now.
06:15My take is the bulk of what's done can get done in Canada.
06:20But getting a rocket off the ground in Canada isn't just about manufacturing
06:23and assembling the parts.
06:25Nordspace and companies like Protospace must navigate a regulatory system that's still finding its footing.
06:30If they're going to regulate private space the way that they regulate general aviation in Canada,
06:37then the thing's just dead in the ground.
06:41The, we can't do this in Canada, is a natural reaction in a country that is naturally risk averse.
06:49The nation is also lacking some of the most critical regulatory components to allow companies like Nordspace to move forward with progress.
06:56Canada doesn't yet have a fully realized launch licensing system,
07:00so Nordspace chose to push the envelope deliberately, applying for a commercial orbital class license even for its suborbital demo.
07:07Goel says his company wanted to force its TIGA launch to be regulated under commercial space launch requirements.
07:13While this requires significantly more boxes to check for the upcoming flight than would otherwise be necessary for a suborbital launch,
07:19Nordspace wanted to make sure all parties involved would have a confident understanding of the regulatory procedures.
07:24By the time in 2027 we're ready for orbital, we're not stuck on the pad because the regulators aren't able to actually regulate this thing, even if they wanted to.
07:35There's a lot of this front loading, a huge reason as well why we can't just build rockets.
07:39We have to bring the whole system together with us, policy, regulations, all the different agencies that it affects.
07:46He agrees with Milburn's risk-averse observation of Canada, but hopes Nordspace can help change that.
07:52And Canada, very much unlike the United States, is a much more risk-averse nation, and you know, that is what it is.
07:58Maybe we can tweak that over time, especially with the success of launch, I think that will send a strong signal.
08:04He hopes that signal resonates throughout the country, but doesn't expect the gospel to spread all at once.
08:09In fact, in Canada you mention to anybody that you're building a rocket engine and you want to test them on their farm,
08:14or on an industrial plot, they're just going to have an allergic reaction to it right away.
08:19And we got kicked out of every location you can imagine, so open it and we had to bite the bullet, buy an old mine,
08:24and then build our pension test facility over there. But the point is that we want to open that up for others as well.
08:30Nordspace isn't building for a space industry of one.
08:33Its 150-acre ASX coastal site will include two launch pads, one specifically designated for third-party use.
08:40We're building two pads very specifically so that we can offer the second one to somebody else,
08:45ideally a domestic launch partner, but also foreign.
08:48It's a very strategically located site.
08:50The United States is under a lot of pressure for launch site capacity.
08:54The newly signed, or about to be signed, technology safeguards agreement with the United States means
08:59that rockets and systems can flow north of the border for the first time.
09:04And we strategically located it as well to be about 100 kilometers east of the French territory of St. Pierre and Miquelon.
09:11So we're trying to be as accommodating as possible to even European launch providers.
09:16It's very challenging, I think, for somebody in Canada to take the path that we're taking where, you know,
09:23you have an entrepreneur who's a crazy kind of space geek his whole life,
09:27spent the last decade acquiring his own, you know, small fortune.
09:32But getting to that point, we're now investing it all back in Canada.
09:35It's really the only way.
09:36But I consider that a tremendous responsibility to create infrastructure that other Canadians can leverage.
09:44You know, it's also a good sales opportunity for us.
09:46Unlike in the U.S., Canadian companies aren't bound by ITAR, the International Traffic in Arms Regulations,
09:52making Nordspace's business model and technology attractive to global markets.
09:56Because we're ITAR-free in a lot of ways, copy and paste this model to other nations
10:01that are looking to develop their own sovereign launch capabilities and sovereign space programs,
10:05but don't have the technical capability, manufacturing and industrial base and all of that,
10:09and use that model and help other nations actually develop their own space programs,
10:14nations like Kenya, Philippines, Peru, and others that we've been in conversations with.
10:19I think Canada is a very unique country.
10:22And we're really serious about making this happen,
10:25not just because of the economic and national security benefits,
10:28but I really believe, born and raised Canadian, that we need a win in this country
10:36as something that people can point to for decades and say,
10:40look, they did this against all odds.
10:42And I don't want this to seem like this story where you have a bunch of people
10:47that did something that seemed impossible.
10:50This is possible.
10:51So I'm really trying to make sure that this is a story that it doesn't just have the economic and security
10:57and environmental impact and all that we hope it does,
11:00but it really becomes a symbol for Canada for what we can do in all sorts of domains,
11:07not just space.
11:08And I think space, it has this ability to inspire unlike anything else,
11:13and I think that Northspace will really tap into that for the first time for Canada,
11:19and I can't wait to see what that results in over the course of my lifetime.
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