The sky's no limit for MDA Space

MDA Space is quietly emerging as a major player in a rapidly growing space industry.

- DAVID OLIVE

Brampton-based MDA is best known for its Canadarm robotic arm, used on space missions.

MDA's share price popped by 13 per cent last week on news that MDA has won a $1-billion contract to build the latest-generation Canadarm3 for the Canadian Space Agency (CSA).

MDA was expected to land the contract, having earlier been awarded preliminary design work on Canadarm3.

But the announcement drew attention to MDA's expanded product offerings to meet booming demand.

The global space economy is expected to grow by about 60 per cent in the next decade to more than $1.1 trillion, and to $2.1 trillion by 2040.

MDA forecasts an increase in its own revenues this year of roughly 25 per cent, to as much as $1.05 billion.

"The company's been on a great run," Mike Greenley, CEO of MDA, said in a recent interview with BNN.

"We're going to cross the $1-billion sales line for the first time."

Besides the Canadarm, MDA builds satellites; space antennas; autonomous robotic systems; Earth surveillance and aerial mapping software and equipment and planetary vehicle systems.

Demand is coming from operators of satellite networks that fill the gaps in terrestrial cellphone coverage with low-Earth-orbit (LEO) satellites.

Those networks, among the largest of which is Elon Musk's Starlink "constellation," also provide telecommunications in unserved and underserved parts of the world.