Feds puts $200M into space launch pad in Nova Scotia
Posted Mar 16, 2026 12:13:22 PM.
Last Updated Mar 16, 2026 02:03:59 PM.
The federal government is putting $200 million toward a Canadian-owned launch pad to send satellites into orbit.
Ottawa will use the funds over the next decade to lease a space launch pad near Canso, N.S., which will serve as the foundation for a future spaceport.
Defence Minister David McGuinty announced the project today at a Canadian Space Agency lab in the nation’s capital.
Canada does not currently have the ability to launch space projects on its own and has relied on the United States to get its satellites into space.
The initiative is part of the Liberal government’s new strategy to build up the domestic defence industry.
The 2025 budget earmarked $183 million over the next three years for establishing sovereign space launch capabilities.
Successful launches to the ‘edge of space’
The Nova Scotia company behind a plan to build Canada’s first commercial spaceport says it successfully launched its second suborbital rocket.
Minutes after the launch from Little Dover, N.S., Maritime Launch Services said on social media, “And we have liftoff.”
The post was accompanied by a photo showing a rocket ascending into a blue sky above a stand of evergreens, a thin plume of white smoke trailing behind.
The company’s launch pad is near Canso, N.S., at the northeastern tip of mainland Nova Scotia.
In July 2023, the Halifax-based company launched a smaller amateur rocket — Goose 3 — built by students at York University.
In June of this year, Maritime Launch Services announced its plan to launch two suborbital rockets to an altitude above 100 kilometres, which is generally agreed to be the boundary between Earth and space — otherwise known as the Kármán line.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 16, 2026.
