Canada Rocket Company to build large engine test facility in London

Canada Rocket Company (CRC) is building what it claims will be Canada’s first large-scale, static rocket engine test facility on the outskirts of London, Ontario.

Official response and confirmed impact

“Until now, a Canadian company working at this scale would have had to go abroad to countries with more established space programs.”

“Until now, a Canadian company working at this scale would have had to go abroad to countries with more established space programs,” CRC co-founder and CEO Hugh Kolias told over email, citing the United States, France, Germany, and Japan as potential alternatives.

“Building it here means that capability stays in the country, and it’s available to others in the ecosystem too.”

Incident background

The new site will be located on 50 acres of land leased from the Greater London International Airport Authority.

The facility will feature a 12,000-square-foot office and shop building for engineering, assembly, and testing, and a dedicated area with up to three vertical and horizontal test stands capable of putting rocket engines with more than one meganewton worth of thrust to the test.

CRC says the facility will help anchor its medium-lift orbital launch vision, which entails building a sovereign alternative to SpaceX’s Falcon 9 capable of carrying 12,000-kilogram payloads to space as the US aerospace giant focuses more on its own cargo.