The Current - Why Canada wants to launch its own satellites

Episode Date: March 27, 2026

Brig.-Gen. Christopher Horner, commander of 3 Canadian Space Division, explains why Canada is interested in cementing the ability to launch its own satellites from a spaceport on home soil — and why, for the military in particular, it's a matter of security and sovereignty.

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the ability to launch its own satellites from home soil. It's committed $200 million towards a dedicated space launch pad in Nova Scotia, which in part will support operational needs of the Canadian Armed Forces. Brigadier General Christopher Horner is the commander. of three Canadian Space Division. For your general, good morning to you. Yeah, good morning, Pia. How are you this morning? I'm great. Before we get deeper into satellites and launch pads, why is the Canadian military focusing on space?

Like, are there threats up there that we need to be more aware of? Absolutely, Pia. One of the things that, you know, we're often asked about is, hey, is space this benign place far away that astronauts go, or should we be more concerned about it? The reality is space is no longer this abstract thing. It's infrastructure that makes Canada work. As an example, GPS timing for financial transactions, secure communications for first responders,

whether in climate monitoring, aviation and maritime safety, and the precision and protection our armed forces rely on, all comes from space. And what we've seen is some pretty destabilizing activity over the recent years from certain countries around the world. debris creating anti-satellite tests back in 2021 from Russia or repeated launches of small, highly maneuverable satellites that come very close to what Western spacecraft used to ensure the sovereignty and security of their countries. And so as we look at some of those threats to space, we have to focus on how can we be resilient as a country in the face of those threats. So we currently launch our satellites from elsewhere, different places to do that. Why does our country need the ability to launch satellites from a spaceport here in Canada?

So it's about assured access to space. As I said, space is critical infrastructure. So losing access to space could technically create a loss of about a billion dollars of Canadian GDP per day. About 20% of our economy from rough estimation runs through space-enabled capabilities. So satellites, communication, GPS, timing, and signals. So as we look at the launch cadence across the world, there's only a few countries or a few providers who have the ability to continually launch into space. But it's becoming more and more congested in the schedule. And so it's looking at, you know, years to two to three years out before you can put something into space using one of those private or other country providers.

From a national perspective, that doesn't truly give us our sovereign or assured access to space if we were to lose some of the capabilities that Canadians rely on. So from a defense perspective, it's about having the resilience to defend and protect those critical assets in space or being able to replace them quickly, be that they are interfered with by an adversary or maybe space weather. And it doesn't particularly matter why, but our ability to replace them or replenish. is what makes it critical for us from an assured access and resilience perspective. So we've chosen Nova Scotia. Why Nova Scotia? Geographically, it's an excellent place to launch from because of the way rockets have to go into space. They will launch towards the south. They like to launch out over bodies of water that are not at risk to where people live in populations. And so as you look at the landmass of Canada, as enormous as we are, there's only a few locations.

in which you could safely launch rockets into space. And so Nova Scotia, where maritime launch services is building their infrastructure is one of those locations. What does a spaceport look like? That's a great question. People just assume it's a tower and a concrete pad and a rocket sitting on top of it. But really, there's a lot of infrastructure

that goes into that from fire suppression to integrating the payloads that you would put on the rockets to ensuring that, like, doesn't disturb the rocket or the pad or any of those things. So there's more of a standard coming along looking at how certain companies are building out their capability. But you'll see a tower and you'll see a rocket and you'll see a water tower that does the fire suppression and lightning capability to prevent disaster.

But that's sort of what it looks like. We could see this spaceport getting ready for satellites to take off. I don't know if that's a right term for satellites, but as soon as two years from now, what's at the top of your priority list? What does it need to be used for first? So what it needs to be used for first is really giving Canada that access to space that we don't have as an independent space-faring nation thus far.

It is the ability that, and one of the things that we are pushing for within defense is first getting to launching or lifting small light satellites into orbit to make sure we have the full ability to do that, and then growing the capability over time so that the rockets can get a little bit bigger and you can carry bigger things to space. We have an enormous space ecosystem in this country with incredible companies that develop space technology or satellites. And the ability for us to do that as a nation and have them built across the country and then launched from our country is what we're hoping to see. Again, from a pure defense perspective, it's about creating a pathway to resilience and sustainability for us. Well, it also builds out our

security, sovereignty, and economic prosperity from creating those jobs that come along with a spaceport and a rocket program. So the federal government is putting significant money towards this launch pad. At the same time, we're seeing the Canadian Space Agency having to scrap its lunar rover mission due to budget cuts. This would have been Canada's first rover exploring the moon's environment and gathering scientific data. I appreciate there's a difference between defense and exploration. But to what extent do you think we might see more of these tradeoffs putting security and defense ahead of space exploration?

Well, I'd be cautious to put one ahead of the other because I think they go hand in hand, if I'm honest. You take a look at the fact that we've got military astronauts. You've got Colonel Jeremy Hanson, who is assigned to the space agency and is about to depart, hopefully next week on the Artemis II mission to do space exploration. And so is that a defense mission? No, but it's a member of the defense team seconded to another government agency to take on the science and activities of human spaceflight.

As we look at capabilities for the future, so much of space is dual use. There are so many capabilities that we look at. And the example I'll give you is using sensors to sense. from space down to the earth. We can do that for wildfire detection to help emergency services, but we can also use that to help the military maneuver and find things. As we look into space and we understand what is in space from a space debris perspective and how do we deal with that, we can also look at space and understand what's in there from an adversarial perspective and see how folks maneuver. So I think it's less about the divergence between civil or commercial or military

applications of space and more looking at just how much of those capabilities are dual use and can we benefit from those programs that are built by the CSA or by the Canadian Armed Forces and merge elements of them together to contribute to broader efforts across the government. Brickettage General, thank you very much. Appreciate your insights into this. No problem. Thanks, Pia. Appreciate being on. Brigadier General Christopher Horner is the commander of three Canadian Space Division. This has been the current podcast. You can hear our show Monday to Friday on CBC Radio 1 at 8.30 a.m. At all time zones, you can also listen online at cbc.ca.ca.com or on the CBC Listen app or wherever you get your podcasts.

My name is Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening. For more CBC podcasts, go to CBC.com. slash podcasts.