As US relations fray, Canada gets serious about its own launch industry

“From a technical perspective and an infrastructure perspective, essentially 90 percent of everything you do on that light lift piece gets thrown out the window, and it’s almost like a net new program,” Kolias said. “And everyone said, if you’re not going to try to commercialize light lift, then why even do it in the first place? And that kind of hit us relatively hard.” So the company set its sights higher: developing the R-2 rocket, a fairly standard medium-lift vehicle that in renderings somewhat resembles SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket. There are nine methane-fueled engines, a gas-generator engine cycle, and landing legs that signal a future path toward reuse of the first stage. It could carry up to 12.5 metric tons to low-Earth orbit. If all goes well, Kolias said, the company could be ready to launch by 2032. That would be fantastic, but is any of this realistic? Eventually, Kolias said, the Canadian government might put as much as half a billion dollars on the table for a sovereign launch capability, along with some guarantee of launch contracts. Canada Rocket Company remains small for now with about 30 people—a core of which are Canadian rocket scientists who left to work at places like SpaceX, Blue Origin, and Rocket Lab but have now returned north. But the company has raised $22.5 million to date and is going to market with a Series A fundraise. So growth is coming.