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<\/p>\nThe company behind a spaceport in Canso, N.S., is defending the project after images of the site sparked criticism shortly after Maritime Launch Services signed a multi-million dollar lease with the federal government.<\/p>\n
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Maritime Launch Services\u2019 spaceport has been in development for years on the outskirts of the small rural fishing community.<\/p>\n
The company leases the land from the province of Nova Scotia.<\/p>\n
The Department of National Defence signed a $200 million, 10-year lease with Maritime Launch in March to secure the location as a sovereign launch site.<\/p>\n
Soon after, images of the site, which currently consists of a long gravel road, a concrete pad and a storage container, sparked criticism.<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\tPhoto taken in April of the site of the Maritime Launch Services spaceport in Canso, N.S.\t\t\t\t <\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy: Marie Lumsden\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
Conservative MP Vincent Ho called on the parliamentary Science and Research committee in May to study the deal, which he described as a \u201cprocurement disaster.\u201d<\/p>\n
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The CEO of Maritime Launch Services, Steve Matier, defends the project.<\/p>\n
\u201cFrankly, it\u2019s right where it should be,\u201d he says. \u201cAs you\u2019re building anything, you\u2019ve got to start with roads, grounds, and then start working on the structures that come after that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Five years ago, the company released detailed architectural drawings of its plan for the site, which included a launch control facility and visitor centre.<\/p>\n
Matier insists design work for the site is taking place behind the scenes.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve done initial construction, initial roads. We\u2019ve got design teams that have been working all winter on the buildings and utility hubs,\u201d he explains.<\/p>\n
Canso residents have waited years for the spaceport to become a reality and bring promised jobs and economic spinoffs.<\/p>\n
Resident John Cook, who owns two businesses in town, says he\u2019d like to see more progress.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf it doesn\u2019t happen, you\u2019re going to see we\u2019re going to lose our hospital. The school will end up moving to Guysborough,\u201d says Cook. \u201cIt\u2019s just going to be a spinoff of losing. And that\u2019s what this town has dealt with for the last 25 years.\u201d<\/p>\n
The warden of the District of the Municipality of Guysborough, which includes Canso, says the area needs an economic boost.<\/p>\n
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\u201cAnytime there\u2019s any perspective of project development, they\u2019re going to need a big backing, big reason for doing it. And having the Department of National Defence on board certainly gets credibility to that project,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
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\t\t\t\t\t\tSome residents raise doubts, concerns<\/p>\n
But some residents would rather the spaceport never happen at all.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is going to be a testing ground for this company,\u201d worries Bernie Steger, who, along with his wife Pat, moved to Canso from Ontario 10 years ago.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re only three plus kilometres away from the launch pad,\u201d says Pat. \u201cI can\u2019t see how we could possibly be here during a launch.\u201d<\/p>\n
Maritime Launch often calls itself \u201ca fully licensed launch site,\u201d but there is no such thing in Canada. Ottawa\u2019s formal regulations for commercial space operations are still in the works.<\/p>\n
Transport Canada imposes safety requirements on launches on a case-by-case basis and says it wouldn\u2019t approve any rocket launch that could put lives at risk.<\/p>\n
That means safety setbacks are determined based on an individual launch, depending on the type and size of rocket used.<\/p>\n
Global News asked the department for the launch requirements for a suborbital rocket launch conducted by the company last fall, but Transport Canada would not provide the information, referring Global News back to the company itself.<\/p>\n
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Resident Marie Lumsden\u2019s home is less than three kilometres from the launch site.<\/p>\n
She questions how construction can happen without a formal regulatory system and argues for the need for greater transparency.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis entire thing has been sort of a cart before the horse on so many levels,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s all well and good to say we have an exclusion zone of three kilometres, [and] I don\u2019t know if that\u2019s an arbitrary number, but what that means is that there shouldn\u2019t be anybody in that area.\u201d<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\tMarie Lumsden sits at her kitchen table, which is 2.9 kilometres away from the spaceport launch pad in Canso, N.S.\t\t\t\t <\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\tHeidi Petracek\/Global News\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
When asked by Global News about the distance of residents from the launch pad, Matier says the setback is now closer to four kilometres after he says the company \u201cadjusted its layout.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lumsden is among a group of residents who have banded together to oppose the spaceport.<\/p>\n
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Documents obtained by the group and viewed by Global News indicate the provincial government is still waiting for Maritime Launch to complete all the conditions required under environmental assessment to operate as a spaceport. It has fulfilled the requirements necessary for construction.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have concerns about how consultation happened here, there\u2019s a lot of people who don\u2019t want this project, and it\u2019s being forced, it feels like it\u2019s been forced upon us,\u201d says Lumsden.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are fully permitted for construction. The handover is once we go operational. And that\u2019s where Transport Canada comes in,\u201d says Matier.<\/p>\n
He insists the company\u2019s plans follow widely accepted industry safety standards and that Transport Canada has reviewed its safety calculations.<\/p>\n
\u201cDealing with rocket fuels \u2026 and all the things that go into that, laying out the facilities. That\u2019s in my resume and it\u2019s being modelled after how they\u2019ve been doing it in the U.S.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have to demonstrate that they\u2019re safe to a level of one times 10 to the minus six, meaning less than one million chance that anybody on the ground is going to have anything that\u2019s going to affect them,\u201d he adds.<\/p>\n
Sovereign-built rocket lacking<\/p>\n
Global News asked Dr. George Nield to review the focus report outlining safety setbacks and hazard mitigation prepared by Maritime Launch in 2019 for Nova Scotia\u2019s environment department.<\/p>\n
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Nield is chair of the Global Spaceport Alliance, was a former associate administrator for Commercial Space Transportation at the Federal Aviation Administration and also worked as manager of the Flight Integration Office for the Space Shuttle Program at the NASA Johnson Space Centre.<\/p>\n
The MLS focus report\u2019s calculations are based on the Ukrainian-built Cyclone-4M rocket, which is no longer on the table.<\/p>\n
Nield says the distance setbacks being discussed seem reasonable.<\/p>\n
\u201cBased on the reading that I\u2019ve done, the rockets that have been proposed both in the past and going forward now look like they probably would be compatible with that kind of population density,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
Nield says it\u2019s common practice in the United States to give residents who live close to launch sites advance notice of a launch date so they can either leave home for the day or watch from a VIP site.<\/p>\n
He agrees that transparency is important.<\/p>\n
\u201cOnce a licence is granted, that information is posted on the FAA\u2019s website in terms of, yes, there\u2019s a launch licence to SpaceX or this kind of rocket in this location under these conditions,\u201d he explains.<\/p>\n
Long-time space industry journalist Eric Berger of Ars Technica adds the project does face challenges.<\/p>\n
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\u201cI think Canada\u2019s made a good-sized investment in this. But I have questions of whether Maritime Launch Services is capable of delivering on it,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo offence to Canada, but there\u2019s not a lot of experience in building and launching orbital rockets from Canada,\u201d Berger explains. \u201cIf you want to send up a small sounding rocket, so that\u2019s like a couple [of] metres\u2019 tall rocket that\u2019s not going to orbit \u2026 you can theoretically truck everything in and launch it from that concrete pad. If you\u2019re talking about a meaningful orbital launch with a rocket of one ton capacity or greater, then that\u2019s probably years away.\u201d<\/p>\n
Berger cautions achieving sovereign orbital launch in Canada is \u201cgoing to take longer than anyone expects.\u201d<\/p>\n
No Canadian-built rocket capable of orbital launch exists yet, although several companies have rockets in development with hopes to launch in 2028.<\/p>\n
Maritime Launch\u2019s agreement with the Department of Defence stipulates the company must provide a dedicated launch pad and associated services by the end of 2026.<\/p>\n
A spokesperson for the department told Global News those \u201cassociated services\u201d include access to water, power, fibre connections, site security, and payload integration.<\/p>\n
Matier promises the site will be ready.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The company behind a spaceport in Canso, N.S., is defending the project after images of the site sparked…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":693358,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[103,300652,300651,3,79,193,56283],"class_list":["post-693357","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-canada","tag-canada-spaceport","tag-canso-spaceport-facility","tag-news","tag-science","tag-space","tag-spaceport"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/693357","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=693357"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/693357\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/693358"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=693357"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=693357"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=693357"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}