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Ottawa puts $15 million into Xona’s Montreal satellite navigation centre
Subhead: The Strategic Response Fund money backs a $64.8-million mission operations and manufacturing centre for Xona’s Pulsar, a low Earth orbit navigation system.
The federal government is putting $15 million toward a $64.8-million project by Xona Space Systems Canada to build a mission operations, satellite development and manufacturing centre in Montreal.
Why it matters: Military and civilian users depend on GPS, and jamming and spoofing are a growing threat to it. Ottawa is betting a domestic hub for Xona’s Pulsar system will give Canada sovereign capacity in resilient navigation and timing, including for Arctic operations.
Driving the news: Industry Minister Mélanie Joly announced the investment on [DAY]. The money comes through the Strategic Response Fund, which supports large-scale projects in strategically important sectors.
The project is expected to create about 126 highly skilled jobs in Montreal.
It adds manufacturing capacity, mission control facilities, specialized testing infrastructure and engineering expertise to Canada’s defence supply chain, the government said.
The details: The centre will support the long-term deployment, operation and commercialization of Pulsar, a commercial positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) system based in low Earth orbit.
Pulsar is designed to complement global navigation satellite systems such as GPS and Galileo, not replace them. The aim is more secure, accurate and resilient service where traditional signals are weak or unavailable.
Target uses include transportation, defence, telecommunications, critical infrastructure, emergency response and Arctic operations.
Xona uses cryptographic signal encryption and range authentication to guard against spoofing, the company says.
What they’re saying: “Investing in a strong Canadian space industry is fundamental to building a strong, sovereign and secure Canada, for all Canadians,” Joly said.
Tyler Reid, co-founder and chief technology officer of Xona, said becoming a leader in navigation takes a manufacturing, engineering and operations base that grows with the service.
“Expanding our footprint in Montréal creates new industrial capability in Canada and an important new node to Xona’s operational resilience,” Reid said.
Background: Xona Space Systems is based in California. Founded in 2019 by Stanford and SpaceX alumni, it plans a constellation of roughly 258 satellites designed to work with existing devices.
The company launched Pulsar-0, its first production-class satellite, in 2025.
In March 2026, it closed a US$170-million Series C round led by Mohari Ventures Natural Capital to scale production and deployment.
Xona said in an Oct. 9 post that six satellites were scheduled to launch this month. It described early service as intermittent broadcasts for early customers.
The bigger picture: Ottawa ties the investment to its Defence Industrial Strategy and its Positioning, Navigation and Timing Resilience Framework. Both aim to rebuild sovereign capabilities in key space technologies.
The federal government frames dual-use technology as central to how it now invests in defence.
Canada’s space sector contributed $3.8 billion to GDP in 2024, according to the government. It cites a forecast that the global space economy will reach $1.8 trillion by 2035.
What’s next: Xona has said its commercial network rollout will follow next year. The government did not give a timeline for opening the Montreal centre or say whether the contribution is repayable.
