Canadian military should turn to private sector for space surveillance tech, MPs told
The Canadian military could have modern satel‐ lite coverage in the Arctic a decade earlier than envi‐ sioned if the federal gov‐ ernment is willing to follow the example of other coun‐ tries and embrace commer‐ cial options in space, a House of Commons com‐ mittee heard Monday.
Mike Greenley, chief exec‐ utive officer of MDA Canada, told committee members Canada has fallen behind the rest of the globe from "a mili‐ tary space capability perspec‐ tive" and is not effectively working with companies in the aerospace sector.
"As a result, our relevance in a rapidly changing geopo‐ litical world is declining, and along with it, our ability to protect and defend Canadi‐ ans," said Greenley, whose company is the largest in the country in the space sector, with over $1 billion in sales annually.
One of the urgent prob‐ lems facing defence officials is the country's rapidly aging chain of government-owned RADARSAT Constellation satellites.
The federal auditor gener‐ al warned in late 2022 that those satellites could outrun their useful lifespan by 2026 and their replacement known as the Defence En‐ hanced Surveillance from
Space Project (DESSP) - is years away from getting off the ground.
The Liberal government promised dedicated military surveillance satellites in its 2017 defence policy and re‐ peated the pledge in its latest strategy document - but the defence department's project status summary shows the multi-billion dollar program is not set for launch until "be‐ yond 2035."
Greenley said the United States and the United King‐ dom have taken an approach of building only the space hardware they absolutely need, while buying the rest from the private sector.
Canada needs to start doing the same to avoid long delays in deploying critical military capabilities, he said.
"Canada needs communi‐ cations in the North, Canada has identified procurement spend to purchase space ca‐ pability for communications in the North circa 2038," Greenley said.
"Meanwhile, Telesat will launch a global communica‐ tion capability with satellites built by MDA Space in 2027. If we had a conversation to‐ day, it could potentially be configured to deliver military communications in the Arctic a decade faster as a commer‐ cial service - a decade faster."
The Commons defence committee is conducting a study of how the changing geopolitical and military dy‐ namics on earth are being re‐ flected in outer space.
Reports suggest Russia planning to put a nuke in orbit
Of particular concern are re‐ ports that Russia is planning to put in orbit a nuclear weapon designed to destroy satellites.
A top U.S. State Depart‐ ment official told a Washing‐ ton-based think-tank audi‐ ence last week that the Biden administration is worried about one particular pro‐ gram, which Moscow claims is simply a scientific program to test electronics.
"The United States is ex‐ tremely concerned that Rus‐ sia may be considering the incorporation of nuclear weapons into its counterspace programs, based on in‐ formation deemed credible," said Mallory Stewart, who is the assistant secretary of ar‐ ms control, deterrence and stability.
She spoke on Friday at the Center for Strategic and In‐ ternational Studies (CSIS).
"The United States has been aware of Russia's pur‐ suit of this sort of capability dating back years, but only recently have we been able to make a more precise as‐ sessment of their progress," said Stewart.
She went on to say that the capability is not active and has not been deployed, but nevertheless "Russia's pursuit of this capability is deeply troubling.
"There's no imminent threat."
Stewart's remarks were echoed recently by Brig.-Gen. Mike Adamson, the comman‐ der of the recently estab‐ lished 3rd Canadian Space Division.
He said the reports are troubling and the Canadian military is working with the American Space Force and Space Command to under‐ stand the technology and its implications.
"We don't believe at the moment that there's any im‐ minent threat," Adamson told the Commons defence committee last week.
"It's probably worth stat‐ ing as well [that] internation‐ al law prohibits the place‐ ment of nuclear weapons in space. So this would be a di‐ rect violation of that and cer‐ tainly counter to accepted norms of behaviour that we would expect from any spacefaring nation."
For the past seven years, the Canadian military has been looking for ways to pro‐ tect its satellites from being shot down or disabled.
Prior to the threat of a nu‐ clear device in space (which could severely disrupt and even destroy a number of satellites), western militaries had been focusing their at‐ tention on ground-based rockets being developed by Russia and China to pick off key communications and command devices in orbit.