Road to somewhere: NordSpace starts access road to NL launch site

NordSpace Corp. is still awaiting a green light for its suborbital test launch, but it’s not stopping progress on the infrastructure needed to send a rocket into orbit from Newfoundland and Labrador.

The company, based in Markham, Ont., is building its Atlantic Spaceport Complex near the town of St. Lawrence on Newfoundland’s Burin Peninsula.

A launch pad from which NordSpace plans to launch its Taiga suborbital rocket was built in 2025.

Now, the company is working on Phase 2 construction in anticipation of eventually launching its Tundra and Tempest orbital rockets into space.

The construction involves building a six-kilometre stretch of access road to the site.

That is expected to be completed in the spring of 2027 and will be followed by installation of core spaceport systems, including two orbital launch pads, mission control, propellant storage, launch platforms and towers, ground stations, vehicle integration hangars and the first elements of a visitor centre.

The plan is to have the site ready for an orbital launch in 2028, aligning with the timeline of the Department of National Defence’s Launch the North program.

Earlier in 2026, NordSpace was awarded $8.3 million in Launch the North funding to go towards the development of its Canadian-designed and manufactured rocket and satellite systems.

The first phase of NordSpace’s spaceport plans included work on getting environmental approvals, Crown lands grants, construction of the suborbital launch site and preparation for initial flight tests.

The Phase 2 comes after an investment of $10 million into the spaceport project in late August, including $4 million from the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador, $1 million in federal funding from the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency’s Regional Economic Growth through Innovation program plus $5 million in NordSpace private capital.

“That capital is now being deployed, delivered in significant part through NordSpace’s partnerships with local contractors and suppliers from across the Burin Peninsula,” the company said in a release issued Thursday, Oct. 15, 2026.

The roadwork under Phase 2 coincides with NordSpace waiting on getting approvals from Transport Canada for a launch window for its inaugural Taiga flight.

The company made multiple attempts in late summer and fall 2025, but the suborbital rocket flight had to be scratched each time for technical reasons.

The plan was to try again in the spring of 2026, but the company has decided to wait for new federal government regulations regarding space flight under the Commercial Space Launch Act so launches adhere to those new authorizations.

NordSpace already has a presence in orbit. Its Terra Nova satellite was deployed from a Space X flight that launched from California on Oct. 1, 2026.

Terra Nova is carrying technology developed by NordSpace with capabilities in the areas of space domain awareness, wildfire monitoring and Arctic monitoring using artificial intelligence.

“NordSpace is working tirelessly to build a company that is sovereign in itself, so that it can in turn power a sovereign Canada,” Rahul Goel, NordSpace’s founder and chief executive officer, said in Thursday’s statement.

“We are going to great lengths to ensure that not a single stone is left unturned or risk not mitigated, and that Canada ends up with a real sovereign launch capability that is commercially viable, technologically relevant, and operationally scalable.

“The Atlantic Spaceport Complex is a cornerstone of that capability, and Phase 2 is where the vision takes physical shape at St. Lawrence. Combined with Terra Nova now operating in orbit, Taiga nearing its first flight, and the regulatory work we are advancing alongside Transport Canada, we are putting in place every ingredient of a Canadian space economy where Canadian rockets launch Canadian payloads from Canadian soil.”

The Taiga suborbital flight won’t be a one-and-done deal. NordSpace is planning to develop the Taiga program into what the company calls its Vehicle for Experimental Rocket Testing and Exploration (VERTEX) program.

According to NordSpace, VERTEX will be a commercial suborbital program that allows government, academia, and industry to procure sovereign Canadian suborbital flights at a high cadence.

“VERTEX will serve as a dedicated platform for retiring risk ahead of orbital launch procurement and operations, giving Canadian and allied customers a domestic flight-test option for payloads, subsystems, and technologies that today have no sovereign Canadian suborbital path to space,” the company stated.