The developers of Canada’s only commercial spaceport are hoping Nova Scotia’s eastern shore will eventually be the site of as many as a dozen rocket launches annually.
Proponents of the project gathered in a Halifax boardroom this morning to plan the next steps, which will rely first on the province approving an environmental assessment plan.
Stephen Matier, president of Maritime Launch Services Ltd., said the goal is to break ground by mid-May, and to begin launching satellites from the $200-million project near Canso in 2020.
The consortium of three American firms is working with the Ukrainian-based Yuzhnoye Design to create the launch complex at the site in Guysborough County.
Maksym Degtiarov, a rocket designer with Yuzhnoye, said in an interview that the firm is capable of producing up to a dozen rockets annually to blast off from the site.
However, Matier says it will be fewer than that in the early years, with the initial goal of putting one to three satellites into orbit in the first year of operations.
The Canadian Press
