Slingshot Aerospace is coming to Canada.
The company – founded in 2017 and with locations in Colorado, California and the U.K. – said it will open an office in Ottawa to provide a special focus on Arctic operations. The company already provides advanced space domain awareness, space traffic coordination, and space security solutions at its other locations, which it plans to bring to Canada as well.
“This was a long time coming,” said Melissa Quinn, general manager of Slingshot Aerospace’s international business. Quinn is from the Canadian Yukon and prior to Slingshot, was a part of Virgin Orbit’s single launch attempt campaign.
The Ottawa office will initially have two individuals, including Quinn, but as local business picks up it is possible that it may expand to about 10 people by the end of 2025. By comparison, Slingshot has roughly 150 employees – a third more than 12 to 18 months ago, and with international locations expanding quickly. The U.K. office, for example, saw its headcount double in the past year.
Slingshot, a privately held company, has already performed several funding rounds – most recently including a September 2024 growth capital round led by Trinity Capital for $30 million USD ($41 million CAD at current-day exchange rates.)
Quinn noted that Slingshot had identified the technical need for a Canadian location years ago, particularly the requirement to have a “suitable Arctic location” for its infrastructure – that search is ongoing so that the company can fill in surveillance gaps existing around the North Pole. “At certain times of the year, near the equinoxes, it’s more difficult to see spacecraft in sun-synchronous orbits, so we really needed to find a suitable location,” she said.
On top of that, having an office in Canada allows for government alliances including with the Canadian military, which has identified the Arctic as key to maintaining sovereignty. As Canada launches satellites, for example, “it would be amazing if they could actually monitor and track them themselves” rather than principally through international alliances, such as the U.S., she said.
To be sure, Canada has always been strong at partnerships, and those partnerships will remain instrumental to space success not only here, but internationally. Quinn said those alliances have been a feature of Canada’s participation in the Five Eyes alliance, NATO, and the like. For example: Slingshot has emphasized the Canadian office will assist with a recently signed $13.3 million USD ($18.4 million CAD) contract with the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Office of Space Commerce.
Slingshot will also create the user interface for the Traffic Coordination System for Space, or TraCSS, and Canadian satellite operator Telesat is among the nine companies initially selected for beta notifications. Simply put, the system performs space situational awareness and furnishes the data to both civil and private space operators. The service issues conjunction data messages – meaning alerts advising a collision risk with something in orbit.
Quinn noted that Slingshot’s desire to be in Canada far predated the changeover to the Trump administration. (With new Prime Minister Mark Carney and U.S. President Donald Trump opening negotiations this week on topics including Canadian sovereignty and contributions to NATO, it is unclear how the partnership between the countries will evolve in the coming months and years.)
That said, a local presence is always beneficial for business growth connected to that community; Quinn pointed to a recent speaking opportunity she had with Space Canada at a launch conference in recent weeks, as one example of connections with Canadians. Having a Canadian office will also allow for Indigenous partnerships and STEM opportunities in the Arctic, Quinn noted: “We’ve had some great meetings with them already.”
More generally, the Arctic has been a large area of focus and hearings concerning Canada’s defence capabilities, The Canadian government announced in 2022 that it plans to spend $4.9 billion on modernization for NORAD, in the first six years of the project – and then $38.6 billion over 20 years on an accrual basis.
The spending at that time was meant to create the following projects for operation in the 2030s: “new radar stations, command and control upgrades, additional air-to-air refueling aircraft, advanced air-to-air missiles for fighter jets, upgrades to Canadian Armed Forces’ infrastructure in the north, and additional funding to complete and augment key space projects,” according to a release issued then.
Canadian industry expressed frustration with the pacing of contracts from these projects during hearings last year at House of Commons Standing Committee on National Defence. Despite Canada saying it would activate a National Space Council (NSC) to provide strategic direction on matters including defense, businesses discussed issues such as security requirements and low space spending relative to Western allies.
