National Defence Committee on May 6th, 2024

[Stewart Bain]

You're asking a really deep question. I will not speak on behalf of DND; they have a policy and a procedure they have to follow when they set their priorities.

My stock answer on that question is, where's the national space council? Where's the national space policy? Where are the priorities that we can follow and identify so that we can move forward? Without that, we're floating in space.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you.

Madame Lalonde, you have five minutes, please.

[Marie-France Lalonde, Liberal, Orléans, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thanks to both of you for being here.

When you think about civil satellites in Canada, according to our notes, 1962 was the first launch from the United States. In 2013, we had another launch leaving from India, I understand.

Mr. Matier, I would really like you to take this time to formalize why it is so important that Canada create its own launching capabilities, and maybe leading to a recommendation as we are studying this. I'll then go to Mr. Bain.

[Stephen Matier]

In recent discussions with the United States Space Force, in their assured access to space initiatives that we're a part of as well, they've made clear, in memorandum as well to their National Space Council, that they would like to see Canadian launch capability.

There are two primary reasons for that. One is that Florida is a sitting duck for a category 5 or some other player. The loss of that launch capability means it would be for everybody, us included. The other is that launching twice a week, they're about maxed out. The air traffic industry is yelling and screaming. They're trying to expand as much as they can, but things are moving pretty quickly and they're congested, basically. It's because there is so much backlog of launch.

We've been affected by that. We've had to wait to launch satellites into orbit by a year or two because of a priority call by the U.S. government. Having our own priority for a launch capability and providing backup to the United States or a replacement if they're taken out are kind of the three main ones.

[Marie-France Lalonde, Liberal, Orléans, ON]

We talked a lot in the new DPU about the importance of the Arctic. For me, certainly, it's all about our sovereignty. How does that fit within your interpretation of how a launch within Canadian soil could help on the sovereignty piece of our defence strategy?

[Stephen Matier]

The beauty of our location is that we can do polar sun-synchronous orbits, which are the ones that go over the poles, basically. Polar-type orbits are what we can offer. Because we hang out over the top of the North Atlantic, we have a launch due south, basically straight down, over Africa and into orbit. That access over the poles is what's so popular for many of these satellite developers. It's for just that kind of thing.

[Marie-France Lalonde, Liberal, Orléans, ON]

Thank you.

Mr. Bain, I don't want to go back, because I think you were very clear about who you represent and what it is, but I want to ask you about the debris. You mentioned a lot of numbers, including that 130 million pieces of debris are currently floating. Is there technology or something to look into that dynamic of actually removing that debris?

I remember years ago I had the privilege of visiting Telesat. They were talking already about the cemetery for that debris, which, as you said, is from years ago. As we're launching more, commercialization is needed. From a defence perspective, I think we absolutely need to. But there is debris there that also has a risk of impact.

[Stewart Bain]

Yup. You're right. Where do I start? I know that 131 million pieces of debris sounds like a lot, but they're in certain bands. They're not all over the place, but they're in the bands that are, as you would imagine, the most popular.

The honourable member asked me a question earlier that I didn't answer. There are specific bands in space and there are specific orbits in space that are much more desirable—polar orbits, sun-synchronous orbits where RADARSAT flies, and medium-earth orbits where the GPS systems fly. The hardest thing we deal with from the ground, just to give you something else to think about, is a spent rocket. Once it has taken a satellite to geostationary, there's a piece left that's about the size of a city bus. It moves at 16 kilometres a second in a highly elliptical orbit. It goes all the way out geostationary, comes all the way back to low-earth orbit and goes back out again. It's on the equatorial plane. It goes right past the GPS satellites every day, and there's no way to track it from the ground.

These things are happening without a lot of people being aware. These things are happening and they must be tracked, which is why NorthStar created our system.

[Marie-France Lalonde, Liberal, Orléans, ON]

That's great to track, and I completely agree, but should we also look at removing them? Should we look at technology to actually do something else other than sending them to a less desirable orbit circle?

[Stewart Bain]

That's a great question. In my business, you can break a lot of laws, but you can't break the laws of physics. You can imagine a city bus moving at 16 kilometres a second. I don't know what technology you could use to grab it, reorient it and bring it down out of its orbit. It has a tendency to want to stay there. It will degrade over time. What you're really doing is waiting for it to degrade and fall out and come back down to earth. It will do it eventually.

But there are other objects in space. There are a lot of technologies and a lot of companies. We work with a company in the United States. They're international and are called Astroscale. They do active debris removal. You maybe think of debris as just a piece of junk. A spent satellite that's still intact and can be picked up could be grabbed and pulled out of space, but now you're launching a satellite with a rocket to grab a satellite and bring it back down out of orbit. You have 130 million pieces to take care of. The technology has a long way to go to be able to do that kind of cleanup.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Ms. Lalonde.

Madam Normandin, you have two and a half minutes, plus 30 seconds.

[Christine Normandin, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Bain, I want to continue on the topic of space debris.

You talked about objects the size of a bus travelling at 16 kilometres per second. You also said you are able to identify objects that measure one centimetre, 10 centimetres or 40 centimetres, depending on the orbit.

I would think that an object the size of a bus could do a lot of damage if it were to collide with a satellite, but I would like to hear more about the damage that can be caused by small pieces of debris.

What is Canada exposed to by being unable to identify that small debris? What risk is it running?

[Stewart Bain]

It is an immediate risk.

I have worked on various commercial missions. I will not mention them all, but I can tell you that collisions happen every day. I would point out that satellites do not emit any vibrations because there is no atmosphere in space. There is nothing we can do to change the stability of satellites. They move through space. Why do they move? Because they are hit by debris every day. That means that satellites start moving through constellations. This is something we have to monitor and examine seriously because it poses an immediate threat.

So our system is designed with that in mind, in a sense. The question is whether we can navigate through all of that and provide enough information far enough in advance to ensure safe navigation.

[Christine Normandin, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

In the future, is there likely to be an increase in the number of large or small pieces of debris, given that collisions create debris?

Is the number of small pieces of debris likely to increase more than the number of large pieces, or is the risk roughly the same for both kinds of debris?

[Stewart Bain]

The larger pieces of debris pose the greatest risk, of course. Small debris can be created by microcollisions, so to speak. That said, collisions between a satellite and an object that is of the same size or bigger can be catastrophic.

[Christine Normandin, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

I have one last quick question for you since I have a bit of time left.

New technologies are being developed for new satellites. For example, Japan has built wooden satellites, which could degrade easily.

Are there aspects of those technologies that should be monitored in the future?

[Stewart Bain]

I know of one company here in Canada that is designing and manufacturing space launchers that use a renewable fuel source. Thanks to chemistry, plastic is being transformed into renewable energy. I find that very interesting.

[Christine Normandin, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Madam Normandin.

We now go to Ms. Mathyssen for two and a half minutes.

[Lindsay Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Mr. Bain, you talked about the space council and it being run from the PMO. Is that solely because of the priority you think you need and that can only come from the PMO? If that's the case, then fair enough.

A space council is meant to bring balance, neutrality and non-partisanship. How do we ensure that, in that case?

[Stewart Bain]

That's a great question.

It's all by representation. You want representation from the government, commercial enterprise and, non-government organizations. You want everybody to have a certain number of seats at the table to have a voice to be able to express concerns or raise issues, and work in an open manner.

I'll go back to the leadership question. It's by other people's experiences that we know it has to be run by the top. Efforts to do it in any other way were not successful. As an environmentalist wanting to protect the environment of space and wanting things to move quickly, I don't want to waste any time. We know the formula is that it must come from the top. It has to be from the PMO.

[Lindsay Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Okay.

Mr. Matier, on the same question.

[Stephen Matier]

My experience is with the United States National Space Council and its effectivity, and the participation of the user advisory groups is really fundamental to that. Those are the commercial companies that participate in it. It's really getting the focus committees set up, populated and represented by the government. Then those committees are populated to really put the emphasis where it needs to be put.

[Lindsay Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

I have one minute.

The really big question, of course, goes back to that nuclear side of things. What is the bigger impact that the Canadian government has in terms of our responsibility to future generations and that environmental impact? Is it the push forward to that bigger détente of the bigger the weapon the more détente, or is it through negotiations on a non-nuclear proliferation?

[Stewart Bain]

I think you've touched on a lot of really interesting subjects.