Thank you, Chair and committee members, for the opportunity to speak today.
My name is Jean-Pierre Hickey. I am a professor at the University of Waterloo in mechanical and mechatronics engineering, specializing in hypersonic aerodynamics and propulsion. Through NATO working groups, government and industry collaborations, my research advances hypersonic technologies. It's a dual-use area that touches civilian space and also defence applications.
Today, I want to emphasize the need for a coordinated national effort under the NORAD modernization plan to build hypersonic expertise and infrastructure in Canada. Doing so will strengthen our defence capabilities, but also synergize Canadian industry.
Hypersonic weapons are no longer a theoretical threat. They are already being used in Ukraine. Russia’s Avangard glider can reach North America. Both China and Russia have hundreds of operational hypersonic weapons. Like traditional ballistic missiles, hypersonic weapons can travel up to and beyond Mach 10, which is two to three kilometres per second, but they do so while manoeuvring unpredictably at low altitude. They are difficult to track, difficult to intercept, and they compress decision-making time. These systems pose a serious challenge to Arctic defence, as our current radar and response infrastructure were not designed to detect or counter them.
Canada’s NORAD modernization plan and the defence innovation strategy acknowledges this threat, committing that Canada “will harness innovation in hypersonic and cruise missile defence”.
At hypersonic speeds, the air molecules impacting the vehicle cause aerospace materials to actually melt. They bring complex control stability issues, and require completely different propulsion systems. However, Canada does not currently have any specialized facilities to reproduce these extreme flight conditions.
High enthalpy tunnels are needed to recreate these flight conditions to study flight dynamics, propulsion, thermal protection and even to help identify threats, yet Canada does not have a fully functional high enthalpy hypersonic facility. Without such facilities, we cannot validate and train the next generation of hypersonic experts. It's not about developing offensive capabilities. It's about understanding the threat, modelling trajectories and identifying hypersonic signatures so that we can defend against it. That requires the right infrastructure and skilled personnel.
If Canada wants “to adapt to rapid technological change faster than its adversaries and as fast as its allies”, as stated in our vision for defence, we must act now.
Our adversaries and allies are moving very quickly in this space. Since 2007, China has built one new large hypersonic test facility every year. The University Consortium on Applied Hypersonics links over 120 U.S. institutions with advanced hypersonic capabilities. Australia, Europe and others have made similar investments in hypersonics, combining national scale facilities with university expertise and research.
In Canada, the talent base is thin. Since 2001, only four doctoral fellowships by NSERC were given to students whose titles even mention hypersonics. All are from Waterloo, and all did their studies in the U.S. and Australia.
Canada needs a national hypersonic strategy that fits within the NORAD modernization plan and advances our understanding, modelling capabilities and identification of hypersonic threats while simultaneously growing the space launch industry that relies on this advanced R and D. Unlike other areas of investment in research, development and innovation within the NORAD plan where Canada has a thriving ecosystem of innovation, such as quantum, AI or advanced materials, we need a dedicated and coordinated effort to build out our expertise in hypersonics. We need to synergize Canada's industrial base, such as Reaction Dynamics in Longueuil or Tekna plasma systems in Sherbrooke.
In the short term, this means establishing university-based hypersonic facilities that enable collaboration with DRDC, DND, NRC, and even the CSA, while creating training programs possibly in collaboration with our allies to develop high-quality personnel in this field.
In the long term, Canada should develop a national hypersonic test facility, ideally at DRDC Valcartier, where much of our historical expertise in high-speed aerodynamics already resides.
For Canada to harness innovation in hypersonics, we need to invest in people, infrastructure, and coordination. This will ensure that Canada not only keeps pace with our allies, but also helps shape the future of hypersonic defence and civilian space research.
Thank you.