Canada Rocket Co. to invest $30-million in Ontario engine-testing facility

Canada Rocket Co. Inc. is investing $30-million over three years to build an engine-testing facility outside London, Ont., the latest step toward the company’s goal of launching a medium-lift rocket into orbit in 2032.

The Toronto-based company, founded in late 2025, will use the new 50-acre site adjacent to the London International Airport for “static tests” – where the engines will remain on the ground – as well as offices and assembly areas, said CRC’s founder and chief executive officer Hugh Kolias.

The company, now with 32 employees, has so far raised $22-million from government and private investors toward the development its own reusable rocket, including designing its own engines, as these cannot be affordably sourced from a third party.

In London, CRC plans to build three concrete and steel sheds, in which the company will bolt its custom-designed engines to rigs connected to the ground. The company will then fire the engine to test its efficiency, reaching heats of 700 C. The company is considering using a mix of sprayed water and ridges of earth to limit noise disturbances in the area.

The company expects the site will be fully operational by 2028, the same year it plans to have a fully assembled custom engine ready for testing.

The company has already outgrown its new Etobicoke property, which it moved into in July, Mr. Kolias said. CRC now plans to build an additional 500,000-square-foot manufacturing facility elsewhere in the province, and is assessing lakefront properties from which it could one day transport its planned 150-foot-long rockets to launch pads by boat.

Mr. Kolias declined to provide details about future fundraising to pay for these new facilities, but said he expects to have “a lot more than $30-million in the next few months.”

In order to reach orbit, Mr. Kolias expects to need close to $1-billion in funding. He says he hopes half of that will come from government – propelled by what he sees as a strong domestic investment push by Prime Minister Mark Carney – with the remainder coming from venture capital.

To date, most of the company’s funding has come from Canadian sources. This includes a $8.3-million non-repayable grant from the Department of National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces to develop space-launch vehicles and technologies.

“We’re not excluding international dollars,” Mr. Kolias said, “but I think there’s also probably a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to have this as Canadian as possible.”

CRC is one of several Canadian companies aiming to help solve a challenge for the global space sector: Currently, there are not enough rockets available to keep up with the growing demand.

Commercial space launches in recent decades have dramatically lowered the cost of sending tech to orbit, but rocket capacity has not been increasing at the same rate as demand, spurred by higher government defence spending and the rapid expansion of satellite constellations.

Meanwhile, launch companies capable of deploying medium-to-heavy-weight payloads – for instance, SpaceX – are winding down old rockets or filling up launches with their own equipment.

Combined with a push for sovereign control of critical technologies, countries all over the world have been looking inward at their own space infrastructure and seeking ways to reduce their dependence on the U.S.

Canada’s Telesat Corp., for instance, will use SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rockets to take its low earth orbit constellation, Lightspeed, to space. But SpaceX plans to phase that rocket out within a few years, creating an opportunity for CRC to step in, Mr. Kolias said.

Recently, Prime Minister Carney said Canada would aim to “diversify away” from Starlink, SpaceX’s low earth orbit constellation, which provides internet service directly to customers and direct-to-device satellite service through a partnership with Rogers Communications Inc.

Developing heavier-lift rockets is a riskier pursuit, in part because it requires a longer runway before reaching commercialization. Even after reaching orbit, Mr. Kolias said, companies typically require another two years of testing and increasing launch cadence before they can commercialize their technology.

At full capacity, Mr. Kolias hopes the company will be sending rockets into space weekly, with Canadian payloads taking up fewer than 10 launches, leaving room for international customers.