In another historic milestone for NordSpace, the Honourable David J. McGuinty @DavidMcGuinty, Minister of National Defence, announced yesterday that NordSpace has been awarded a $20M, 10-year contract with the Department of National Defence at the Atlantic Spaceport Complex (ASX) in Newfoundland and Labrador. The ASX is Canada’s largest spaceport, and being built from the ground up to support light, medium and heavy-lift rockets, starting with NordSpace’s own Tundra and Tempest vehicles. This is the first contract of its kind between the DND and a Canadian commercial launch company developing both launch vehicles and launch pads. It uniquely positions NordSpace as Canada’s sovereign launch provider, a result of us being Canada’s only fully vertically integrated space missions company. Owning our own spaceport allows us the cadence and control necessary to operate at scale for both domestic and allied needs. Under the Facility Access Agreement (FAA) contract: 🚀 DND secures priority access to a dedicated launch pad at ASX, available to conduct urgent activities related to national security. 🚨 DND secures priority call on NordSpace launch capacity in the event of a matter of national security requiring urgent deployment of payloads to orbit. 🛰️ Over the 10-year term, NordSpace will prepare its facilities, vehicles, spacecraft, and operations for secure responsive sovereign launch, from Canadian soil, on Canadian timelines, under Canadian control. We intend to go beyond the baseline commitments of the contract by working toward always having our Tundra launch vehicle paired with several of our Aquila-class spacecraft buses available and on standby at ASX. The posture is designed to allow any DND mission to be integrated onto Aquila, launched aboard Tundra, and operated on orbit within a target window of 24 to 72 hours. This is the model the United States Space Force has demonstrated through its Tactically Responsive Space program, and the capability Canada now needs to build for itself. The target responsiveness is only credible because NordSpace is vertically integrated, designing, building, and operating the rocket, the spacecraft, the propulsion systems, the ground systems, and the spaceport itself. A truly sovereign responsive launch capability has to be owned, end to end, by a Canadian company under Canadian control. We are working closely with 3 Canadian Space Division (3 CSD) to purpose-build the capability around the real operational needs of the Canadian Armed Forces. The contract sits inside a broader vision now being executed in parallel across every layer of our vertically integrated program: 🛰️ Terra Nova is operating in orbit, testing common hardware and operations at TRL-9 across our launch and space systems, as the first Canadian launch company operating its own hardware in space. 🏗️ At ASX, Phase 2 construction is underway at SLC-01, targeting Spring 2027 completion ahead of made-in-Canada orbital launch NET 2028. 🏭 At Rocket Factory 1 in Markham, the Tundra orbital launch vehicle is making rapid progress leveraging advanced manufacturing in metal additive and automated composites. 🚀 Our Taiga suborbital vehicle is awaiting flight pending final regulatory approval as the first ever commercially authorized launch in Canada. Taiga will evolve into VERTEX, a nationwide sovereign Canadian suborbital launch platform ahead of Tundra’s first orbital flight. Each of these milestones is in service of the same commitment: launching Canadian rockets, carrying Canadian payloads, from Canadian soil, when Canada needs it. We are grateful to the DND and Hon. Minister McGuinty and the 3CSD and BGen Christopher Horner for their partnership and trust. @NationalDefence @CanadianForces @DRDC_RDDC @csa_asc @spacecanada @Transport_gc