FIRST READING: Canada pledges $200 million to ‘space port’ that is just a concrete pad in Nova Scotia

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In an investor presentation just this month, Maritime Launch Services said that the site could support up to 150 satellite launches per year. But to date, it’s only launched two rockets, neither of which reached space. The first, in July 2023, was by a York University student group. The second, last November, was the test launch of a single-stage rocket by the Dutch firm T-Minus Engineering.

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The land under Spaceport Nova Scotia isn’t even owned by Maritime Launch Services. Rather, the site is 334.5 acres of Crown land obtained through a 20-year lease with the Province of Nova Scotia.

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https://www.youtube.com/shorts/T297rsuh3gs

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And yet, at the core of Canada’s plan to develop a “sovereign space launch” capability is an agreement to lease Spaceport Nova Scotia at a cost of more than $50,000 per day.

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Under the terms of a sublease struck last month, the Government of Canada agreed to rent the site for $20 million annual for at least the next 10 years.

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In the agreement, Maritime Launch Services is described as “constructing and operating a commercial launch complex for the preparation and launch of commercial and/or government orbital or suborbital missions/payloads.”

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In a press release on Tuesday, Nova Scotia MP Sean Fraser, who is the minister responsible for the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, said, “Our $200 million investment in a spaceport will help ensure Canadian technology can be launched from Canadian soil.”

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Maritime Launch Services was founded in 2016, and its initial plan, as outlined in environmental filings with the Nova Scotia government, was to perform commercial space launches using Ukrainian-made rockets.

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A 2017 profile published in the journal Aerospace America described Maritime Launch Services as being “created specifically” to be a Canadian operator of the Cyclone-4M, a planned expendable rocket to be manufactured in Dnipro, Ukraine.

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“A maximum of 8 launches per year with associated pre-flight activities such as mission rehearsals, is planned,” reads the details of the site’s official 2019 environmental assessment.

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Of late, Spaceport Nova Scotia has rebranded itself as more of an “airport” in which clients could rent launch pads in order to launch their own payloads using their own rockets. “We offer launch vehicle operators a complete range of launch azimuths for their satellite clients,” reads Maritime Launch Services’  official website.

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For 2025, MLS’s financial statements show it only brought in $14,980 in revenue, all of which was recorded as “lease income.” This was against operational losses of $3.8 million.

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The year prior, there was no revenue, and operational losses of $3.4 million.

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The $200 million agreement with the federal government is actually the second time in six months that Maritime Launch Service has struck a multi-million-dollar funding deal with the federal government. In October, Export Development Canada approved $10 million in development funding for the company.

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Canada was the world’s fourth country to put a satellite into orbit with the 1962 launch of Alouette 1. But Canadian satellite launches have traditionally been performed on U.S. soil.

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The reason is partially one of geography. Satellite launches are easier to perform at lower latitudes due to the simple fact that the ground is moving faster in relation to space; land at the equator is spinning at 1,670 kilometres per hour, while at the North Pole it’s barely moving.

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This is why the European Space Agency performs most of its satellite launches at a site in French Guiana just north of the equator. NASA, similarly, does all its major launches from Cape Canaveral, which is located near the southern edge of the contiguous United States.