Canada Wants Off SpaceX, but Its Satellites Have No Other Way Up

Canada has spent months talking about diversifying away from Starlink, but its own satellite makers still need SpaceX rockets to reach orbit. SpaceX closing Falcon 9 bookings after 2028 makes that harder to escape.

Tesla North reported that SpaceX has stopped taking new Falcon 9 bookings beyond 2028 as it shifts customers to Starship, citing The Logic. Canada has no medium-lift rocket ready to fill the gap, and the cutoff became a major talking point last week at SpaceBound in Gatineau, Quebec.

Telesat is the clearest example. Its Lightspeed constellation, which includes an Arctic military layer tied to a $2.3 billion CAD federal contract, needs 225 satellites in orbit, and those launches are booked on SpaceX before the Falcon phaseout. We covered that tension when the US ambassador called out Canada’s Starlink snub at the same Gatineau conference.

CEO Dan Goldberg said no Canadian option could realistically handle a constellation that size today. Lightspeed is competing with Starlink, Amazon and Chinese state players, so Telesat needs a provider that can carry many satellites at once, several times a week, at a competitive price. Launch is expected to eat roughly 20 per cent of the program budget, or about US$1 billion.

Prime Minister Mark Carney warned again last week that Canada shouldn’t rely on a single foreign provider for space access. At the same conference, US Ambassador Pete Hoekstra said Canada had made a conscious decision to close its market to SpaceX.

Federal money is still flowing to a domestic launch industry that has yet to reach orbit. Ottawa is putting about $200 million CAD into the Maritime Launch Services pad near Canso, Nova Scotia, under a 10-year contract, and a separate competition is splitting $25 million CAD among three small-rocket startups. Small rockets can’t replace Falcon 9 for large constellations, though.

Medium-lift hopes rest on companies like Canada Rocket Company, the Etobicoke startup that has raised $22.5 million CAD without an orbital flight. CEO Hugh Kolias said a new rocket typically takes six to eight years and around $1 billion CAD to reach orbit, so the gap won’t close by 2028. Canadian startups have already hitched rides on Falcon 9 this year, including a first satellite launched for one domestic firm, while Rogers has been watching SpaceX’s Starlink Mobile filings for clues about Canada.

SpaceX, meanwhile, keeps pushing Starship forward, most recently with a full 33-engine booster static fire ahead of Flight 15. Until a Canadian rocket actually flies, the country’s biggest satellite projects stay tied to the company Ottawa keeps saying it wants to move away from.

Should Canada keep pouring money into sovereign launch while its largest constellations still need SpaceX to get off the ground?