Canada cancels $72 million contract to build constellation to track wildfires
In what appears to be an unexpected decision, the Canadian government this past week suddenly terminated a $72 million contract with the company Spire Global Canada to build a constellation of satellites designed to locate and track wildfires.
According to a Form 8-K filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Spire Global received a written notice on April 23, 2026, from the Minister of Public Works and Government Services (PWGS) terminating the agreement “for convenience,” effective immediately. The Phase B and C contract would have had an aggregate value of $71.8 million, including harmonized sales tax, if all contractual milestones had been achieved. The value of the overall WildFireSat satellite constellation including Phase D for manufacturing, system assembly, and integration is $106 million.
WildFireSat mission setback
This represents a serious setback for the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) and other government departments who are participating in the mission. Only a month ago the project was being touted as high return-on-investment climate mission in the annual Canadian Space Agency 2026–27 Departmental Plan.
The plan had called for a constellation of nine smallsats, with one back-up ready for launch on the ground.
No reason has been given for the cancellation. The Canadian Space Agency merely stated that “The Government of Canada will soon be engaging with industry and begin working closely with stakeholders on how best to advance the continued development of this important mission.” Spire Global meanwhile has until May 7th to apply for settlement costs.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
In what appears to be an unexpected decision, the Canadian government this past week suddenly terminated a $72 million contract with the company Spire Global Canada to build a constellation of satellites designed to locate and track wildfires.
According to a Form 8-K filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Spire Global received a written notice on April 23, 2026, from the Minister of Public Works and Government Services (PWGS) terminating the agreement “for convenience,” effective immediately. The Phase B and C contract would have had an aggregate value of $71.8 million, including harmonized sales tax, if all contractual milestones had been achieved. The value of the overall WildFireSat satellite constellation including Phase D for manufacturing, system assembly, and integration is $106 million.
WildFireSat mission setbackThis represents a serious setback for the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) and other government departments who are participating in the mission. Only a month ago the project was being touted as high return-on-investment climate mission in the annual Canadian Space Agency 2026–27 Departmental Plan.
The plan had called for a constellation of nine smallsats, with one back-up ready for launch on the ground.
No reason has been given for the cancellation. The Canadian Space Agency merely stated that “The Government of Canada will soon be engaging with industry and begin working closely with stakeholders on how best to advance the continued development of this important mission.” Spire Global meanwhile has until May 7th to apply for settlement costs.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Canada, it seems, is locked in a steel cage death match with California for which jurisdiction has the most dysfunctional government.
Maybe those satellites were supposed to be launched from this spaceport:
https://rumble.com/v7947nw-nova-scotia-spaceport-exposed.html?e9s=src_v1_ucp_v
Maybe they’re afraid the launch would start one
Dick Eagleson:
Yup. In fact, Canada’s getting its own bullet train, which will run from Quebec City to Hamilton, Ontario. (Look up the name Alto.)
The estimated cost is 90 gigabucks CDN, but, if past results for such projects are any indication, the decimal point will have to be moved to the right by at least one digit by the time it’s finished–if it’s finished. This for a country that’s in hock over its ears…..
That few satellites doesn’t give enough coverage at that price point. Canada would be better off buying the service from someone.
Joe:
A few days ago, in an earlier post, I mentioned the name Telesat Canada. For most of its existence, it was a Crown corporation (i. e., owned and operated by the government). More than 25 years ago, it was privatized, changed its name to Telesat, and changed owners once or twice. (Like with much of the Canadian space business, it’s a bit hard to figure out exactly who owns what and when, but that’s another story.)
About a decade ago, Telesat announced that it was going to build its own satellite constellation, named Lightspeed, presumably in response to Starlink. So far, all I’ve heard is a number of “plans” for a vast fleet of birds in orbit, but, in reality, I don’t think there’s much of its hardware out there. In fact, I think Amazon Leo has more, but I might be mistaken.
Canadians are using Starlink. I’ve seen SL gear for sale on swap-and-shop sites as users upgrade their systems. At the same time, there are a lot of second-hand Ku-band satellite dishes being sold dirt cheap, if not scrapped, as I get the impression that they’re switching over to what SpaceX has to offer.
BMJ,
First I’ve heard of a Canadian high-speed rail project. Perhaps, as here in CA, a mile or two of track will get built in some fly-blown rural place between the notional endpoints before the project implodes. Both sites will make interesting ruins for future generations to visit – assuming there are any in CA, Ontario and Quebec. Anyone with sense and the financial ability seem to be getting out of all three places with all deliberate speed.
What is it about lefties that makes them so fascinated by 19th- and early 20th-century transportation modalities? It’s always railroads and subways with these people.
BMJ: As far as I know, Lightspeed has gone nowhere. Its preliminary design was for 1,671 satellites, but that was reduced to 300 in April 2025. MDA was supposed to build 198, but that also might be moot now.
Dick Eagleson:
There’s money to be made in shipping freight by rail. Look up CPKC, the result of Canadian Pacific and Kansas City Southern merging in 2023.
CP used to have a lot of side businesses up until about 30 years ago. It had a hotel chain. There was a trucking line and a fleet of ships. Finally, there was an airline. All that got dumped, the company focused on its rail service, and it made money after that.
Mr. Zimmerman:
I recall the previous Prime Minister making some sort of public statement about Lightspeed.
BMJ,
Rail is fine for freight, but the lefties want to haul people. That quit making economic sense as the Interstate Highway System got built. There is nowhere in the world where passenger rail makes money or merely breaks even.
That said, high-speed passenger rail does make sense in the land of its birth, Japan. The country is small, very mountainous and rail rights of way are much narrower than major highways. Even with passengers packed in like sardines, though, the Japanese bullet trains require government subsidy to operate. Everywhere else, they require even more government subsidy because they have low ridership.
That’s particularly true in the PRC. Most of the bullet train lines there were built as public works projects to ensure full employment in the construction and materials industries. Many of the lines have virtually no passenger traffic as they run to entire cities in which almost no one lives and which were built both as sponges for employment and as real estate speculations. The PRC’s terminal demographics made all of this a guaranteed fail.
Subways never made money either. They started as private efforts in NYC, quickly went broke and were taken over, then expanded, by city government.
I can only assume that lefty fondness for uneconomic fixed-rail human transport derives from some deep hatred they harbor for the idea of citizens being able to go anywhere they want, any time they want, in private cars without either government permission or knowledge. Can’t have that!
Telesat Lightspeed, as it is now known, has been talked about by Prime Ministers and a lot of other people in Canada for more than a decade. But there are still no sats on-orbit and, thus, no current service availability. There have been misadventures finding a suitable satellite supplier. As nearly as I can determine, the satellite supplier finally settled upon is MDA. SpaceX will, supposedly, be launching the first birds for the constellation later this year – assuming Telesat is still around to pay the bills. Telesat’s most recent audit caused its auditors to question its ability to continue as a going concern. Telesat has announced an intent to concentrate on government and defense customers rather than consumer-tier services. I take that to mean that Telesat has been unable to lock down a suitable supply of end-user terminals with which to serve the consumer market.
I would say that if nothing is on-orbit by year’s end, Telesat will either be on the way to the boneyard or might well already have arrived.
BMJ noted: “All that got dumped, the company focused on its rail service, and it made money after that.”
One of the things I learned in B-School: focus on core competencies; outsource everything else. Note that focusing on core competencies can include vertical integration. The admonition is more about the dangers of diversification, rather than integration. Wow, that sounds almost . . . societal. Everything is connected.
CP steam ships enjoyed a good reputation but was more a way to tie the Empire together – across the Atlantic to the Dominion of Canada across Canada by a railroad which was built to prevent the Western Provinces from seceding and joining the US (why do you think Trump’s comments raised such a hullabaloo, and Ottawa is deathly afraid they’ll do it someday – resentment of the Federal Government and eastern Canada is just beneath the surface on the prairies) then across the Pacific to the Crown Colony of Hong Kong., Australia and New Zealand. It. advertised it self as spanning the world.
https://www.art.com/products/p53776024100-sa-i8169188/canadian-pacific-spans-the-world.htm?srsltid=AfmBOooeBCsPSAju6FIISC3dVZpOucwOmXiSXhaK5SrztZBMpMadPNr2
BTW – One of the things I learned at B-School is realize what your customers want. CP didn’t view itself as a railway company, it was a transportation company. Their customers wanted themselves and their goods to be transported from A to B – they didn’t care if it was by airliner, truck or oxcart (nature of cargo and time consumed in transit being obvious factors). Too many American railroad executives fell in love with trains and didn’t realize they were in the transportation business.
I speak as a card carrying railfan (NRHS, R&LHS, NMRA) who mourns the great express trains, but realize their time is past