The Quebec company Reaction Dynamics, which must at some point launch the first Canadian rocket into orbit, hopes to deploy a launch pad in the province to allow the space industry here to be more competitive and to carve out a place in the market for launching microsatellites, where Space X currently reigns.
In parallel with its research and development activities, Reaction Dynamics has in fact taken steps to meet with the Quebec government to explore the possibility of setting up a rocket launch base in the province.
Reaction Dynamics CEO Bachar Elzein explains that having such infrastructure close to its assembly site could significantly reduce costs: “Our rocket is designed to fit into containers developed specifically for transport , so if the launch pad is close, you put that in a truck, and presto! that’s all. It’s simpler and it reduces greenhouse gas emissions,” he explains.
Promising local businesses
Above all, the presence of such a platform would have the effect of developing and consolidating a young industrial cluster in a booming sector. A number of Quebec companies with promising technologies are gaining notoriety: GHGSat, which develops satellites to monitor methane emissions, NorthStar Earth & Space, which offers a commercial space monitoring service from a constellation of satellites , MDA Space, which specializes in space robotics.
A launch base could only be beneficial for Quebec and Canadian engineers who wish to work here, according to the 33-year-old leader: “Do we have a launch industry in Canada and Quebec? Certainly not. But there is a very strong aerospace cluster. You can recruit a mechanical engineer who has worked on airplane fuselages and bring him to work on rocket fuselages by giving him good additional training. »
So when will there be a Cape Canaveral in Quebec? No defined projects are currently on the table. The idea is above all to explore this possibility. The geographical choice of a potential site must meet several characteristics, he recalls: “For security reasons, it must be in a relatively remote region, in areas which are not inhabited and which are near of the ocean. »
Flight into orbit from 2024
Five years of existence will have been enough for Reaction Dynamics to establish itself as one of the most innovative and promising aerospace companies in North America. The young shoot from Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu has designed the Aurora rocket, an 18-meter device which, in particular, replaces the liquid fuel usually used with recycled polymers.
Result: the device could emit up to 50% less greenhouse gases than its competitors, according to the company’s tests. Its technology would allow a considerable reduction in the number of components, reducing the manufacturing cost of the devices by four compared to its competitors.
The rocket is expected to perform a series of suborbital flights by spring 2023. The launches will take place from the site currently being built by Maritime Launch Services in Nova Scotia. The flights will make it possible to validate not only the launch procedures, but also the ground control systems as well as the technologies on board the rocket. They will also be used to obtain the necessary permits for a first orbital flight in 2024.
The small satellite market
Bachar Elzein is aware that his company will have to elbow its way to carve out a place for itself. Currently, SpaceX has almost a third of the market. However, Reaction Dynamics’ business model differs from that of Elon Musk’s company. “Their rocket is 15 tons, approximately, and it mainly carries satellites of 15,000 kg to 20,000 kg,” he says.
He explains that microsatellites (between 50 kg and 200 kg) and nanosatellites (less than 10 kg) must most of the time make do with the vacant space in the device, thus being unable to guarantee their launch date or the in orbit with precision.
“Those who want to send microsatellites have to make compromises. Me, it’s my market. So, if a customer comes to see me with a microsatellite that weighs 100 kg, it is he who is the master of his destiny and who decides whether to put it into orbit”, explains Bachar Elzein.
“The microlaunch industry [lancement de microsatellites], it is very recent,” he points out. Three companies currently have the capacity to make such orbital flights: the British Virgin Orbit, the American Astra Space and the New Zealander Rocket Lab. “We are not late to the market by planning to make our first flights in orbit as early as 2024,” he says.
Especially since the market is expected to grow considerably in the coming years. Last year, the global market size for nanosatellites and microsatellites was valued at US$2.12 billion; it is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of more than 23.3% by 2030, according to projections by US research firm Grand View Research.
“In this market, we want to be the one that offers the precision of a taxi ride for the space of a bus,” sums up the engineer trained at Polytechnique Montréal.