Canada has signed a 10-year, C$20 million agreement with NordSpace to provide the Canadian Armed Forces and partners access to the Atlantic Spaceport Complex in Newfoundland and Labrador for launches and research and development, the government announced October 21. The National Defence announcement did not disclose a launch date, payload quantity or an operational-entry schedule.
The agreement expands Canada’s sovereign launch programme alongside a separate 10-year agreement with Maritime Launch Services announced in March. The government said the arrangements are intended to provide access to launch capabilities from Canadian soil, including when foreign launch markets are disrupted. Budget 2025 allocated C$182.6 million over three years to establish the programme, according to Defence Industry Europe’s report.
Separately, Canada awarded Kepler Communications a C$4.7 million, two-year contract through the Innovation for Defence Excellence and Security programme’s Gateway to the Stars challenge. The work will develop and test laser-based links that allow satellites to exchange data directly, with a stated focus on improving the speed and resilience of communications in the Arctic and other remote regions.
The government said the Kepler project will also support objectives under the Northern Wide-Area Tracking and Continuous Horizon programme, including surveillance and threat-detection efforts across the Arctic. The announcement describes the activity as development and testing; it does not establish that the links have been deployed or are providing operational service.
Canada also announced full membership in NATO’s STARLIFT initiative, a programme aimed at developing a network of allied launch capabilities, and said the Canadian Armed Forces is establishing a dedicated Space Mission Operator occupation. A further C$1.2 million over two years will support space-sector workforce development through Launch Canada and an IDEaS rocketry initiative.