{"id":709143,"date":"2026-06-02T03:00:15","date_gmt":"2026-06-02T03:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/709143\/"},"modified":"2026-06-02T03:00:15","modified_gmt":"2026-06-02T03:00:15","slug":"maritime-launch-services-details-next-phases-of-spaceport-nova-scotia-construction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/709143\/","title":{"rendered":"Maritime Launch Services details next phases of Spaceport Nova Scotia construction"},"content":{"rendered":"

Maritime Launch Services (MLS) and Spaceport Nova Scotia have had a good week, and a better month. Just a few days ago, MLS announced a new deal with Isar Aerospace,<\/a> as well as announcing that it paid back the $5.03 million that it had owed on its EDC facility and had nearly $1 million in Q1 revenue. The vast majority of that revenue is driven by a $200 million agreement<\/a> in which MLS is subleasing a portion of the Spaceport Nova Scotia site to the Department of National Defence (DND) for a dedicated launch pad.<\/p>\n

But that does raise a question: how is that process of building the spaceport going, exactly? What kind of progress is being made, and what is MLS building right now?<\/p>\n

SpaceQ reached out to MLS\u2019s CEO Stephen Matier for an update, and he provided some information about where MLS is at right now and where it\u2019s going.<\/p>\n

Matier started by talking about the civil construction being done by their civil contractor, Nova Construction, which he said \u201cofficially restarted\u201d back in March, and which was able to \u201cpreposition their heavy equipment at the site before the spring road weight restrictions started.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"ConstructionConstruction at Spaceport Nova Scotia: Credit: Maritime Launch Services<\/p>\n

The civil work will be split into two phases, Matier said, \u201cthe first of which will be completed next week.\u201d The first phase was focused on road construction, expanding the road network \u201cto a key central location,\u201d and expanding to the area where their customers\u2019 buildings for launch vehicle integration and satellite processing will be constructed. The next phase of civil work will happen later, after the development of that central location.<\/p>\n

Building the utility hub<\/p>\n

The next step is building the Utility Hub, Matier said, which is \u201cthe heart of the facility.\u201d This hub is where \u201call offsite utilities will be brought down to before being split to the four launch pads.\u201d Nova Scotia Power will be bringing in electricity, and Bell Canada will be bringing in high-speed fibre Internet service, both from the nearby town of Canso.<\/p>\n

The Hub will include \u201chousing for the backup power, basic water services and other utilities,\u201d Matier said. Adjacent to the hub, \u201cin the near future,\u201d will be the common gases like helium and nitrogen, which will be \u201ccentrally stored and provided to\u2026 respective launch pads.\u201d<\/p>\n

Matier said that the design has just been completed, and is being prepared for tender next week by their construction managers, Lindsay Construction. They\u2019re looking for subtrades in everything from wells and foundations, to roofing, painting, plumbing, HVAC, and everything else one might expect.<\/p>\n

They\u2019ll be holding industry awareness sessions in the coming weeks to \u201ceducate and encourage Nova Scotian and other Atlantic Canadian companies about the work.\u201d Matier also said that companies can reach out to Lindsay Construction about the project<\/a>.<\/p>\n

They expect to start construction on the Hub in the summer and to have power to it by late fall.<\/p>\n

The entrance and the pads<\/p>\n

Aside from the Hub, they\u2019re also looking to start taking bids for the site entrance facility. The building will be \u201cwhere the first site entrance control point is into the spaceport,\u201d located between the town of Canso and the Sable Wind Farm, and will provide access control for both the wind farm and the outside perimeter of the launch site. \u201cThe design package is nearing completion,\u201d Matier said, \u201cand is expected to be tendered in late June.\u201d<\/p>\n

After that, MLS will be looking into the first launch vehicle integration facility for customers. \u201cThis package is also in the design phase,\u201d Matier said, \u201cand we expect to share renderings in the near future.\u201d The design package is expected to be completed in July, with construction tendering starting \u201cbefore the end of August,\u201d with \u201cdesign input coming through our ongoing launch client collaborations.\u201d<\/p>\n

August is also when the next phase of civil work is scheduled to begin. MLS is planning to \u201cextend the road network down to the four launch pads,\u201d Matier said, adding that they already have preliminary designs and are \u201cworking through the drawings to finalize them by midsummer.\u201d Once they\u2019re finalized, they\u2019ll be bringing Nova Construction back in to \u201cwork to complete [the job] by the end of September,\u201d with priority given to getting first launch clients access to their pads.<\/p>\n

\"AA basic launch pad for small payloads. Credit: Maritime Launch Services. Credit: Maritime Launch Services<\/p>\n

\u201cOur launch clients are separately working on their pad layout designs,\u201d Matier said, developing \u201cfinishes needed for their specific rockets.\u201d One of these tenants will be Isar, which will help finish its own pad, as well as provide feedback for integration facilities and for the Launch Control Center (LCC).<\/p>\n

Speaking of the LCC, Matier said that redesigning and resiting of the Launch Control Center is \u201cfurther down the road,\u201d but is still \u201csomething we are excited about.\u201d They\u2019re thinking about \u201chow the LCC will represent Canada\u2019s sovereign launch facility.\u201d<\/p>\n

Further development of the site for medium-lift launchers is also still planned for sometime in the future, but Matier couldn\u2019t give any details. As to the DND contract, Matier said that it \u201cdoes not change our construction plans and milestones,\u201d and the DND pad is the same one that was used in the recent T-Minus Engineering suborbital launch<\/a> from the spaceport. That pad, Matier said, is already \u201cfully active currently to the DND requirements.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tRelated<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Maritime Launch Services (MLS) and Spaceport Nova Scotia have had a good week, and a better month. Just…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":709144,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[49,48,257525,66,306,257526],"class_list":["post-709143","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-maritime-launch-services","tag-science","tag-space","tag-spaceport-nova-scotia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/709143","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=709143"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/709143\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/709144"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=709143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=709143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=709143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}