{"id":727835,"date":"2026-06-10T16:34:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-10T16:34:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/727835\/"},"modified":"2026-06-10T16:34:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-10T16:34:10","slug":"nova-scotia-test-flight-marks-latest-attempt-to-develop-canadas-rocket-launch-capacity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/727835\/","title":{"rendered":"Nova Scotia test flight marks latest attempt to develop Canada\u2019s rocket launch capacity"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a style=\"display:block\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theglobeandmail.com\/resizer\/v2\/OGVEC4HPFRBGFIMQC3VE6EDLKQ.jpeg?auth=67e6ed29a89dbd523a8f0278d0e7fab6b5956dace0cfff231386b9263f541818&amp;width=600&amp;height=400&amp;quality=80&amp;smart=true\" aria-haspopup=\"true\" data-photo-viewer-index=\"0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"figcap-text\">A Dutch-built rocket ascends from a launch site near Canso, N.S., Wednesday.Ivan Semeniuk\/The Globe and Mail<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-article-body__text text-pr-5\">Canada took another step toward achieving domestic access to space with the launch of a Dutch-built rocket that lifted off from Nova Scotia on Wednesday morning.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-article-body__text text-pr-5\">The rocket launched successfully at 8:51 local time and immediately shot upward into the pale Atlantic sky.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-article-body__text text-pr-5\">It quickly approached the boundary of outer space, which by convention is considered to begin at 100 kilometres above Earth\u2019s surface. But an anomaly in the later part of the flight caused the rocket to diverge from its expected course, and it did not reach that threshold.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-article-body__text text-pr-5\">Team members with the rocket\u2019s builder, T-Minus Engineering BV of Delft, said they would continue to analyze data to understand what happened. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-article-body__text text-pr-5\">To allow time for the analysis, the launch of a second rocket was scrubbed for the day, though it could still be rescheduled as a window for the test flight remains open until June 13. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-article-body__text text-pr-5\">\u201cJust remember, rockets are hard,\u201d said Steve Matier, president and chief executive of Halifax-based Maritime Launch Services, which hosted the launch.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-article-body__text mv-16 l-inset text-pb-8\" data-sophi-feature=\"interstitial\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theglobeandmail.com\/business\/article-canada-sovereign-satellite-launches-space-defence\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Ottawa investing $200-million in Nova Scotia spaceport to enable sovereign satellite launches<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"c-article-body__text text-pr-5\">Wednesday\u2019s event marked the second commercial flight for the company, which is developing a permanent spaceport near the town of Canso. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-article-body__text text-pr-5\">But unlike an earlier effort last November, this launch was witnessed by about 100 guests and media, including a busload of NATO officials and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-article-body__text text-pr-5\">Col. Hansen did the honours of pushing the button that ignited the rocket.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-article-body__text text-pr-5\">Those watching from a viewing area more than a kilometre away saw the brief orange spark of ignition, followed by the immediate ascent of the small rocket. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-article-body__text text-pr-5\">Unlike the heavy rockets used to carry astronauts and massive payloads into orbit, this one sprang into the sky like an arrow and was out of sight in a matter of seconds.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-article-body__text text-pr-5\">The sense of occasion around the event marks a growing political and economic interest in developing domestic launch capacity in Canada. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-article-body__text text-pr-5\">In addition to commercial clients, Maritime Launch also has a contract with the federal government and aims to eventually launch payloads into orbit from the budding Nova Scotia spaceport. The facility is situated on a rocky plateau amid stands of evergreens on a peninsula that is the easternmost point of North America\u2019s mainland.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: A Dutch-built rocket ascends from a launch site near Canso, N.S., Wednesday.Ivan Semeniuk\/The&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":727836,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[49,48,66,306],"class_list":["post-727835","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/727835","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=727835"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/727835\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/727836"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=727835"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=727835"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=727835"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}