Reaction Dynamics unveils Borealis rocket, targeting orbit in 2031

Six thousand kilograms. That is the payload Reaction Dynamics now promises for its next rocket, Borealis, a medium-lift launcher that the Quebec-based startup has unveiled with a target of a first orbital launch attempt in 2031. The figure is set against the company's smaller vehicle, Aurora, which carries ~200 kg to low Earth orbit (LEO) and is targeting a first orbital attempt in Q4 2028. Both vehicles, the company says, are built on much of the same underlying technology.

For most of its roughly ten years, Reaction Dynamics has developed a hybrid rocket engine, one that combines solid fuel with a liquid oxidizer, as part of a plan to build a storable, deployable launch capability. Last year it changed course and moved to an entirely liquid-fueled alternative. “The whole decision to transition Aurora to liquid is to be able to optimize for Borealis,” Mikelberg told the trade publication Payload. The aim, he said, is to avoid running two separate vehicle programs and two separate propulsion programs, one solid and one liquid.

The switch came as Canada's appetite for heavier sovereign launch capability grows, and as SpaceX has signaled its intent to sunset the Transporter rideshare program, the service that carries many customers' small satellites on a single rocket. Reaction Dynamics wants part of that demand and hopes to offer a domestic option with lift comparable to vehicles in the United States. Since moving its whole vehicle portfolio to liquid, the company reports 21 hot-fire tests of the liquid engine. The Aurora campaign is meant to prove out hardware planned for Borealis: avionics, tanks, and eventually a heavier-lift engine.

Engine tests are not a launch, and the money is still being assembled. The company says it has raised about 50 million Canadian dollars and is raising more than 70 million Canadian dollars in a Series B round, to fund Aurora's first launch and a factory able to produce eight Aurora rockets a year. Mikelberg estimates Borealis would need 200 million Canadian dollars or more beyond Aurora. The plan also calls for headcount to rise from 68 to more than 350 by 2031, and for a new 375,000 sq. ft. manufacturing and integration facility in Quebec, sized for 24 Borealis launches a year.

What changes, and for whom? For Canadian companies and public bodies that need to launch satellites without relying on foreign rockets, Reaction Dynamics offers a possible domestic option, though not yet a flying one. The nearer milestone is Aurora's first orbital attempt, planned for late 2028; Borealis, with its 6,000 kg capacity, is a 2031 target that depends on more than 200 million Canadian dollars of financing beyond Aurora. Until a rocket reaches orbit, these figures remain the company's own plans, and the path from unveiling to flight is the part that will decide whether the sovereign launch Canada is looking for becomes real.