Self-described as a “space business and engineering consulting firm,” Montreal based Polaris Aerospace today published a white paper titled The Need For Canadian Sovereign Space Launch.
Polaris’s two founding partners are Neil Woodcock and Oleg Khalimonov.
Woodcock, no stranger to the Canadian rocket scene, was a co-founder and Chief Operating Officer of Reaction Dynamics earlier in his career. His full time occupation now is working for Bombardier in Product and Market Strategy.
Khalimonov is currently the Program Lead for Starsailor, a Space Concordia student project at Concordia University. Starsailor is working towards the goal of launching the first university rocket to space.
SpaceQ contacted Woodcock to get some background. The white paper he said is meant to be a third party analysis and is an independent work product. Woodcock said they contacted many stakeholders to generate the paper.
In the summary the author state that “Canada has long lacked a sovereign space launch capability, which has slowed the growth of its space sector, left it reliant on partners for critical space infrastructure, and has left the nation’s economic interests vulnerable to foreign actors.”
It then continues saying, “Canada must stand as an equal among its peer nations in the G7 and develop its own space launch capability. This policy whitepaper lays out the defence and economic benefits of building a sovereign space launch capability and proposes concrete actions that the Government of Canada, provincial governments, and other participants of the Canadian space sector can take today to promote and realize this capability.”
The authors provide nine action points:
- First, the Government of Canada should incorporate launch as part of a Whole-Value-Chain National Space Strategy;
- Second, the Government of Canada should adopt the measures recommended in Deloitte’s and Space Canada’s 2024 report;
- Third, Canada should accelerate and complete its modernized space launch regulations;
- Fourth, Canada should include space launch as part of its defence strategy, with additional funding earmarked for developing space launch technologies as well as for developing hypersonic and anti-hypersonic systems.
- Fifth, as the traffic jam at spaceports in the United States and the United States Space Force’s interest in Canadian spaceports show, launch sites are a critical element in maintaining a sovereign space launch capability.
- Sixth, the Government Canada should commit to being a first launch customer for aspiring launch companies.
- Seventh, the government should take steps to improve talent and capacity building initiatives for space launch.
- Eight, Space Canada and other space industry groups should adopt the framing of the Whole-Value-Chain Strategy, recognizing that their efforts are less effective in the long-term if they chose not to advocate for space launch as strongly as they advocate for other verticals of the Canadian space sector.
- Ninth, Industry members should include space launch in their lobbying to government as an important but missing component of Canada’s space industry.
Read or download the white paper
