Nova Scotia Spaceport Plans to Launch Two Rockets in One Day This June
Canada's only operational spaceport is gearing up to fire two rockets on the same day. Spaceport Nova Scotia, near the small town of Canso, has a launch window open June 8–14, 2026, for back-to-back flights of the Barracuda rocket built by Dutch firm T-Minus Engineering. The catch: November 2025's debut launch from the same pad never crossed the Kármán line — the 100 km boundary that officially counts as space.
The rocket
Barracuda is a single-stage, solid-fuel rocket, roughly 4 metres tall and just 200 mm in diameter. Despite its compact size, it is designed to carry up to 40 kg of payload to around 120 km altitude at speeds exceeding Mach 6. The November 2025 test fell short of that target. Maritime Launch Services called it a "complete mission success" — framed around operational data collection rather than altitude — a pattern of managed expectations that has drawn scrutiny from aerospace observers, per European Spaceflight.
T-Minus has conducted launches from European sites including Esrange in Sweden, Andøya in Norway, and the MOD Hebrides range in the UK. The June campaign marks the company's first North American deployment. What engineering changes, if any, were made to Barracuda after the November shortfall has not been disclosed publicly.
The mission
This is not a commercial flight. Maritime Launch Services confirmed the mission generates no revenue — its purpose is to refine launch procedures and staff training, according to SpaceQ. Think of it as a full-dress rehearsal with live hardware. There will be no livestream; the operator plans to post photos and video to social media after the fact.
Transport Canada has issued a NOTAM (Notice to Air Missions), locking in daily 4–5 hour launch windows across the week. That paperwork signals genuine intent, though the project has already slipped twice — originally scheduled for October 2025, pushed to November, then to June 2026.
What comes next
Maritime Launch Services originally planned to operate Ukrainian Cyclone-4M rockets from the site, but cancelled that arrangement in 2024 following Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The company has since pivoted to a multi-provider model, with T-Minus providing suborbital capacity while longer-term orbital ambitions — backed by a reported $200 million Canadian defence agreement — remain on an unclear timeline.
If both Barracuda rockets fly successfully this month, it hands T-Minus a credible North American track record and gives the Nova Scotia spaceport a stronger case for attracting future customers, potentially including US clients unlocked by a 2024 Technology Safeguard Agreement. The next planned campaign is reportedly October 2026, per Wikipedia on Maritime Launch Services.