What’s it really like to be on the front line of the Canadian commercial launch industry? Rahul Goel knows. As the Founder and CEO of NordSpace, the Canadian space company that is building its own rockets, a spaceport on the Newfoundland coast, and a satellite services company, Goel is living the Canadian sovereign launch capability dream.
Rahul Goel shared some of his experiences and plans at the inaugural Canadian Space Launch Conference (CSLC) on April 29, 2025. (His talk was entitled, ‘NordSpace’s Updates and Vision for Canada’s Future in Space – Launchers, Spaceports and Satellites’.) NordSpace hosted the conference, which was held inside a packed presentation hall in the Canada Aviation & Space Museum in Ottawa.
Reflecting on his roots, Goel credited the Avro Arrow spurring his passion for aerospace technology. “I saw the full scale model of the Arrow back when I was a little kid. I couldn’t believe what we had built as Canadians,” he said. “I wanted to go see it fly. When I realized that we had axed that whole program, it was a pretty heartbreaking moment for me.”
The end of the Arrow program saw many of Canada’s finest aerospace minds get hired by NASA, where they played a key role in getting humanity to the Moon. “I see that same thing happening now again where we see our student rocketeers who are building amazing technologies, going south, going all over the world, but not building here in Canada,” said Goel. “We can change that, but time is of the essence. The $40 billion space economy is possible, but certainly not without closing the whole loop and closing that value chain.”
Rahul Goel’s mission is to keep Canadian space talent in Canada, which is why he wants to make NordSpace a success. This is why the company is building its Taiga suborbital rocket, its Tundra orbital rocket, and — soon – a higher payload, larger orbital launcher called the Titan that he mentioned at the CSLC.
“This [the Titan] is something that we don’t really talk about,” Goel said. “It’s further away in the future, but it’s important for us to let you know that we care about scaling up our technology.” When it comes to the Titan’s design, “a big reason why we chose liquid propulsion, and a big reason why we’re making some of the design decisions that we are right now, is so that it can scale to something that gets us closer to something around two tons to lower orbit in the 2030s — all built in Canada.”
LeoLabs partnership
In the meantime, Nordspace is making progress on its many plans. “I think we’re going to have the most beautiful spaceport in the whole world, in Canada,” said Rahul Goel. As well, “we’re always trying to find new ways to implement capabilities and infrastructure that has dual use capabilities,” he said. “So I’m excited for the first time today to announce that we’re now partnering with LeoLabs to build Canada’s first space domain awareness capability, tracking everything from debris to payloads to rocket stages and everything in between.”
“This is going to be huge,” concluded Goel. “We can’t wait to see what this means for Canada’s defence community, for NordSpace, and for Canada more broadly.”
No details were provided or a timeline for when LeoLabs would setup at NordSpace’s spaceport.
Space systems and satellites product lines
Goel also spent some time discussing what he calls “a lineup of export-ready space systems products” that the company is developing which he says would “grow NordSpace into an end-to-end space missions company, while commercializing mission critical satellite components.”
Those products include Zephyr-EP “small, stackable, electric hall effect thrusters (HET) producing ~50 mN of thrust”, Zephyr-CH “small, stackable, chemical thruster producing 10 – 100N of thrust, multiple restarts, active cooling”, and Chronos Camera Imager “for Earth Observation (EO) an Situational Awareness (SA) with on-edge Al image processing.”
The company is partnering with an unnammed European company for a satellite bus called Athena. That bus would be used NordSpace’s first satellite Terra-Nova.
Goel said Terra-Nova will demonstrate three key technologies. It’s “partner-built scalable nano/small satellite Athena Bus” and two payloads, the Zephyr-EP and Chronos. The Terra-Nova launch is scheduled for late-2026 on a third-party launch vehicle as NordSpace’s orbital vehicle won’t be ready in time and the company wants to get their other technologies in space as soon as possible.
