MDA Space Ltd. (MDA) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Welcome back. Jason Gursky, Citi's aerospace and defense analyst. I have the pleasure this morning of welcoming Mike Greenley, the CEO of MDA. I count Mike as an old friend. The two of us used to be colleagues at one point when we both worked at Maxar prior to MDA's spin out of Maxar in 2020, 2019? 2020?

Yes, 2020.

Ish.

Yes, something like that. 2019, that deal started to 2020, it closed.

Right.

April 7, 2020, we were independent and off on our way.

Very good. Well, maybe for those that aren't as familiar with the company, maybe a little bit of background on MDA because it's not just a spin out of Maxar, it has a very long heritage in Canada. And I have to say this for those in the room, the next time you're in Canada, I know that we don't oftentimes pick up cash anymore. But if you do, pick up the $5 bill there, and it actually has one of MDA's products on the back of it. Is that still the case?

Yes, absolutely.

Okay, good. Okay. Didn't know. There you go.

[indiscernible] $5 bill. We used to have a radar satellite on $100 bill at one time as well. So we pick up a bit of -- lots of pushing stance too over time.

Okay. Awesome. All right. So why don't you give us a little bit of background on the company and the long heritage?

Yes. So MDA Space, pure-play space company. It's about 56 years old, started in Canada by some folks in British Columbia and Mr. MacDonald and Mr. Dettwiler, which started MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates, which became MDA. Their focus was on creating a place where really strong technical engineering talent could stay employed in Canada, wouldn't feel they have to leave the country to go and find adventures in life. Straight away, the company got into space, and what has been part of the space community ever since. So the history of the business in terms of being like legitimate leaders in radar-based Earth observation, space robotics and communication satellites. All has a 40- to 60-year history, each of those 3 lines, which are the 3 areas where MDA Space is a legitimate leader. The company grew up over time. It was like private, public, had been in and out of the markets and then decided at one time that it needed to grow beyond Canada and ended up [ sliding down the ] United States become -- creating Maxar, becoming part of Maxar. And then like we talked about earlier, in the 2019 time frame, Maxar decided to divest MDA, and we got picked up by Canadian private equity-led group and became a stand-alone company once again, headquartered in Canada. A year later, April of '21, went public, and that's what we've been doing for the last 4 years now trading on the Canadian Toronto Stock Exchange.

Right. Okay. Great. For those that might be a little bit less familiar with what you're doing today, maybe let's just spend a few minutes on the 3 business segments. Maybe have you described what each one of them does today, maybe some key programs in each one of them?

Yes, sure. So there's 3 business areas in MDA Space. The first is geointelligence, where that's involved in Earth observation and space observation. And we do sort of 2 main things there. One is to own and operate RADARSAT-2, which is a radar satellite that we primarily deliver radar-based Earth observation data and imagery to primarily defense and intelligence customers around the world. There are some commercial customers, but the bulk of it is defense and intelligence customers around the world. And so we operate that. And then our largest investment right now is in CHORUS, which is our next generation of our radar-based Earth observation satellites, which we intend to launch in mid-2026, which will be the follow-on to RADARSAT-2. They'll operate together. And then over time, RADARSAT-2 will probably get too old and then CHORUS will be the [ comer-upper ] that it will keep going into the future. So we do that. And we also deliver Earth observation satellites to government customers, primarily the Canadian government through that business, and we deliver a space observation satellites to government customers, primarily Canada. So there's a strong pipeline in that business to deliver new satellite deals to the Canadian government over time. The second one...

Before we move on to some of that, if that's okay, a, give you a chance to get a drink of water. The space observation side of it, I don't remember that. Tell me a little bit more about that.

Yes, it is there. Like so there's -- Canada has a satellite called Sapphire, which is an optical-based space observation satellite that we have the operational contract for. A lot of these satellites that we deliver to the government, we also get the operational contracts for. So we currently have service contracts to operate about 88% of Canada's satellites. But in the space observation business, we built Sapphire, which is a space observation satellite, and we have the operational contract for that today. And that data feed has contributed into the United States' combined space observation picture. Canada has a number of programs through its Department of Defense that are coming up in the next sort of 7 years, which will be to do the next generation of space observation capability. So there's new opportunities in the pipeline to be able to deliver further space observation satellites to that.

When was Sapphire launched?

Oh, I forget the date, but it's been...

A long time.

Yes, yes, it's been several years.

Okay. When we say space observation, we're not checking out stars. We're checking out other assets of other countries.

We're tracking satellites. We're tracking satellites, we're keeping track of who's getting close to who and what's going on up there. It's a defense activity.

Right. Right. Okay. Great.

So that's geointelligence business area, Earth and space observation and delivering satellites and owning and operating RADARSAT-2. Second area is robotics and space operations. So we build space robotics. Started years ago with Canadarm. We put the robotics on all the space shuttles and flew 100 missions there. Then Canadarm2, which is the robotics on the International Space Station and we've flown for 25 years there now with 5 years to go. And we're working on Canadarm3, which is the robotics for Gateway, the new space station who orbit the moon as part of Artemis. And we've spun that technology out in MDA SKYMAKER, which is a new commercial line of robotics products that we're offering to the commercial market for our commercial space stations for on-orbit servicing, on-orbit assembly, debris removal and the like. That team also works on rovers. So we've had rover technology on Mars now for over 15 years. And we have 2 large rover pursuits for the moon right now that we're part of. So that's -- robotics and rovers is in the robotics and space operations business. We just completed new facilities that we moved into in the past year there, which includes multiple mission operation centers for us to be able to operate robotics on orbit, both low Earth orbit and at the moon. As part of our moving forward offering, we are now starting to bid the robotic systems and the operational services contracts to operate those robotics because we have so much experience over the last 40 years of planning and supporting robotic operations. So that's the second business area. And then the third is satellite systems, where we build satellite subsystems that sell to other satellite manufacturers. We've been doing that for 60 years. Most geosynchronous satellites in the world, well over 80% of the orders globally will typically include some subsystems from MDA Space in Montreal from satellite systems. And then as low Earth orbit constellations have come into favor over the last decade, we've been able to pick up subsystems, antenna systems, some payload work on multiple of those and scale up our business. And then in the last 3 years now, we started to bid and win full satellites. And so now we deliver full satellites into low Earth orbit constellations and have come to market with MDA AURORA, which is our new digital satellite product which we've sold to Telesat for broadband communications for their constellation and the recent announcement in the last couple of weeks to Globalstar for direct-to-device communications for talking directly to your smartphone. So the MDA AURORA product is really kind of finding its place in the market, and we have a really strong pipeline. Our biggest pipeline in the business right now is for communication satellites for low Earth orbit constellation.

Great. Why do we spend just a few extra minutes maybe on satellite systems, right?

Sure.

Because I think that's the area of the business that has maybe growing the fastest, it is kind of at the center of this revolution maybe in LEOs, right? So for those in the room, geosynchronous satellites are those that sit way high, 22,000 miles or kilometers. I can't remember the...

Well, about 22,000 miles, about 35,000 kilometers up geo.

Yes. And it rotates at the same pace of the Earth, and therefore, you can go on top of your roof, point your DIRECTV satellite dish at the sky and it doesn't lose the satellite because the satellite is kind of following the same pace of the Earth. And we've got -- a bunch of those operators have been around for...

Decades.

For decades, right, since the '60s probably, whatever, Intelsat was first stood up, right? But they are now moving toward the LEO belt for a number of different reasons. Maybe you can go into why they're moving there. That might be helpful for everybody. And then secondly, maybe just to describe the mission sets that are being operated in LEO today, what that competitive landscape looks like, your customers, how they're competing against each other and which customers you're most aligned with.

Sure. Yes. So with the transition to low Earth orbit, which is about sort of 500 kilometers above the Earth to maybe 1,500 kilometers above the Earth in that zone. You build constellations of satellites that are rotating around the Earth every day at high speed. In terms of why people are doing that, for Earth observation, it's to be close to the Earth to be able to get good imagery of the Earth. But for communications, it's to lower latency, higher speed of communications back and forth to the Earth, in addition to resiliency. So from a defense perspective, if you had 1 satellite in geosynchronous orbit that was covering 1/3 of the Earth for communications, if an enemy took out 1 of those satellites, you would definitely lose capacity. And if you have a low Earth orbit constellation of 150 satellites, it's given you global coverage around the Earth, and enemy takes out one satellite, it won't really affect your network performance. Everything will be fine, and the enemy just exposed themselves that they're going to take out your satellites, and they're probably going to have a bad day. So you get much stronger resilience in your robustness of your communication systems with higher speed of performance by being in low Earth orbit. So that's driving that trend. In terms of like what the use cases are for that is 3 main areas. One is broadband communications, so large like Internet data access-type communications. The second is direct-to-device communications to talk directly to your smartphone or smart devices. And the third is the Internet of Things, which will be machine-to-machine communication to track assets all over the world of different types and be able to talk to assets around the world of different types. And there's definitely groups around the world that are working on this. In terms of the people that are doing this, it starts with the folks that have been doing space-based communications for decades. So the -- usually, they have a sat in their names. So Intelsat, Eutelsat, Telesat, Viasat, all these sat companies that have been operating communication satellites for years are now moving their communication networks and services from geosynchronous orbit, where they had made a living on broadcast and government communications and the like to now coming down in the low Earth orbit and getting into more commercial networks and everyday communications. And so the scale for them has the opportunity to greatly increase over time. In addition to them, we start to see companies coming into the market. So we see SpaceX with Starlink having their own network. They're building their own satellites and operating their own networks. The Kuiper network in the Amazon community, also having plans to build and operate their own network. Other businesses are looking at having their own communication networks or partnering with the sat-type companies to be able to get their services. But in addition to start-ups, they're looking to raise capital to then operate a space network as a business. So as the cost of launch has continued to come down and the volume of low Earth orbit satellites has come up, then you end up with a lower cost environment to be able to enter the market with us, creating a digital satellite like MDA AURORA, it has a much higher operating efficiency. So people can access the market now. They can operate more cost effectively. Business cases are closing and people are looking to space networks now to really provide global communications. And so that's what's happening in the market. For us, the competitors in the market are still largely the traditional satellite developers, the Thaleses and the Airbuses and the Lockheed Martins, the larger aerospace and defense companies that have delivered big satellites, Maxar. These companies have been out there competing for satellite opportunities on constellations. We've always been involved in those at the subsystem level, but 3 or 4 years ago, we decided to move up to the full satellite level and compete for the full satellite. And we started -- immediately started to win with Globalstar's first expansion and then the Telesat win and now the second iteration expansion of Globalstar into digital satellites. And so we have a very, very strong pipeline there that we're pursuing, sort of $13 billion, $15 billion of opportunity over the next 5 years of people that we're talking to and giving quotes to for a range of different constellations. So as a result of that, that's caused us to lean into our expansion. So we're expanding our factory, doubling our manufacturing footprint, putting in high-volume manufacturing systems so that a year from now, we'll be able to produce at a rate of 2 satellites a day for our MDA AURORA products. So that will be quite a shift. Right now, we sort of produce at about 1 a week pace. And then a year from now, we'll be doing 2 a day pace as a result of this infrastructure investment that we're making. So we think that will -- the technology advancement that we have right now in the digital satellite, combined with the high volume output that we have, will hold us in a strong competitive position as we go through the next 5 years.

Right. Okay. I do want to touch a little bit more on the technology and the competitive moat. Before we get there, can we just talk a little bit about the landscape that your customers are operating in because we've got Starlink, which is a SpaceX product. We've got OneWeb out there. We've got Kuiper.

Yes, coming.

Coming, right? Telesat coming as well. Globalstar now, well, not now but they're there, right?

They're there.

And you're doing more with them, and yet you're talking about a $13 billion to $15 billion potential pipeline. And these are, I'm guessing, a lot of these sat companies that have been operating in geo coming down into LEO. I guess 2 questions. One is like from the front page of New York Times. or what's the name of the paper in Toronto?

Globe and Mail?

There we go. Thank you. We're all going to be worried about, oh my God, we're not going to be able to see the stars anymore because there are going to be so many of these satellites flying around. Let's talk a little bit about the congested airspace. But I think most importantly, I'd like to understand where this is all going. It seems like there's going to be a lot of satellites flying around and a lot of potential capacity. What do you have to believe from a capacity perspective, from a demand -- like how much band is out there for capacity to believe that all of these constellations are going to be successful?

Yes. I think each -- in our review, we sort of filter our pipeline and really try to engage firmly with people that have the financing and the economic position to really do this. There are some people that have lived a bit more on a dream, and we really haven't engaged with them so much. But the folks that we work with and have in our pipeline that we're giving quotes to, they really have the means to do these things, which usually means they've got some forms of financing but also anchor customers for their systems. I think that if you look at humanity and our interest in communications and data-based communications and even voice-based communications, like we seem to have an insatiable appetite. And so we haven't had challenges whereby in the past, we like put -- laid too many fiber optic cables under the ocean and had too much capacity or whatever. It's always I want more. I want to move from text to data to voice to streaming video to be able to constantly get more and more features and service from communications. Space-based communications is entering an era whereby it's affordable, its performance is going to be at a level that's comparable to the terrestrial communications. And so we can fill in all the gaps. We have 1/3 of the world that doesn't have access to the Internet today. So all the rural and northern communities and Africa, like parts of South America, Asia, the large populations that can be brought on to these data networks. So a lot of these folks see really good business opportunities, whereby I think in the future, you'll be in a building, in a city or wherever on WiFi, then you'll go into town on a cellular network. And as soon as you leave town, you'll be on a space network and you'll be on a space network wherever you go in the world until you're inside the next city. And so I think that using the space networks and filling all the gaps bring in a couple of billion more users into high-intensity networks around the world is a great opportunity. And then the competitive nature of that is such that people are just going to want more features and more competition. So somewhere out there, there's presumably some limit. But right now, in terms of the people that we see and the people we're talking to, they've all got legitimate business cases, legitimate anchor customers and relationships, whereby they're looking to connect the world in different ways. You start to see space network folks interacting with all of the different mobile phone companies in different ways and then different media companies in different ways. And so the business of operating global networks will now just include space networks, it seems, as part of this. And then there are some corporations that are looking at just having their own space networks. As you get into more of the Internet of Things mode, if you're a global corporation, you have multibillion dollar enterprise around the world, and it's to your corporate advantage to have all your, whatever you do, connected globally all the time to spend $1 billion, $2 billion in a space network as a piece of infrastructure for your corporation. That's not a crazy thing to do for your company, it would seem. You have a question in the audience, very enthusiastic question in the audience, just so you know as a moderator.

Okay. I just see here. Do we have somebody running around with a mic? Okay, while she makes her way, just one follow-up question, and then we'll get right to you. Let's see here. Talk a little bit about the technology, the thing that is kind of enabling you all today that you think is the competitive moat because you mentioned Boeing and Thales and Maxar and others that are out there. And you mentioned your digital and your capacity, right? So capacity, I think we all get our head around. Maybe talk a little bit about the digital payload and how that's different from what others are doing?

Yes. So to have a full digital satellite right now, we've managed to do that and are in the market with a full digital satellite and a bit ahead of others. Others have some digital features in their satellites. But for us to have a full digital dynamic beamforming satellite is definitely a strong competitive feature in our offering in the market. In a communication satellite, it will have beams that are the communication pipes down to the Earth. In an analog satellite, your beam pattern is fixed. So you'll have a certain number of them, say, like 16 beams or something in a satellite, and they'll be pointing in a certain pattern and have a certain capacity up and down for communication. And so as you move and as a result, you've got inefficiency in that because you could be flying in a pattern whereby your beams are just pointing out over the ocean or something and they're not making money. In a digital satellite, you get a tremendous increase in the number of beams. You might go from 16 to 500 beams all of a sudden in a digital satellite. And the beams are fully software managed and software operated, so they're fully controllable in real time. And so you're pointing them, you can point them wherever you need to all the time. So they're always pointing where your customers need data. So they're always making money for you. And then you can aggregate them and de-aggregate them in real time. So you can like aggregate multiple beams to make a bigger communications pipe or de-aggregate them to be able to point in multiple directions. And so the performance of the operational efficiency of a satellite is greatly enhanced in terms of really optimizing your communication services from a digital satellite to your customers. And so that's been a tremendous benefit in competing in the market. As a result of that efficiency, sometimes you can operate with fewer satellites. So your global coverage, you can use fewer satellites, which means you have fewer launches. So you're actually initiating costs can be improved and then your operational efficiencies can be improved by having a digital dynamic beamforming satellite.

Okay. Awesome. Do you have a question?

I do.

Go for it.

So I'm curious, given all these use cases and companies that have ambitions to commercialize space communications. On the spectrum side, is there enough spectrum available of the right quality for everyone to win in this or even commercialize in this space? I mean some of the bands that people are operating in are not particularly reliable bands. And so anything that is mission-critical, defense or intelligence or whatever, is going to have a challenge. And tied to that, there's a lot of focus on broadband versus narrowband. And where do you see that playing out? And then you've got to get these licenses, I think, country by country to offer a truly global service. So the broad question is around spectrum and the ability of people to actually do what they want to do.

It's a huge part of the game for sure, and there's a lot of things to be figured out as we go. So in terms of like a sort of clean space spectrum, there's a number of operators that have the rights to really good space spectrum in different frequency bands. And they -- and as you mentioned, in different parts of the world. And so that gives them, I think, in the near term, potentially like in some cases, an immediate competitive advantage because they have access to the right spectrum at the right time. We are seeing folks in some of the more popular space network conversations these days, people are using terrestrial spectrum and then trying to manage that from space. And the risk with that is that you end up with enough power and capability in your satellite that you can use terrestrial spectrum, maintain communication to a small object on Earth and be able to focus that power without causing interference in that terrestrial spectrum range that you've been licensed to operate in, that you have to be able to do that with power and precision in a way that's not going to cause interference. And that's still to be proven. So a number of folks are running like low levels of satellites, demonstration missions, operating with terrestrial spectrum trying to figure out if they can do that. Most of our -- I think all of our customers right now are those that own space spectrum. And so our near-term pipeline is very strong with people that have the rights to do what they want to do, and we're putting satellites up for them with space spectrum. But the spectrum management aspect will be something that will come into play here to see if folks crack the technological challenge of leveraging terrestrial spectrum from space. And if they can do that efficiently without causing interference, that's something to solve. We've seen sort of some new tiering coming out of like the FCC recently, like opening up some new spectrum opportunities for folks in some of these different ranges. So I think spectrum management by governments around the world, as you mentioned, to have your rights in different countries is going to be an ongoing dialogue. And then potentially opening up technologically like new frequency ranges, like new spectrum ranges from space in some of the higher frequencies to be able to provide some of these services will be a future opportunity as well. But you're absolutely right that paying attention to spectrum management and who has the right spectrum, and if people are able to access the markets that they have their business plans for, is a legitimate thing to pay attention to in evaluating all of this.

Great. Why don't we go one more over here?

Yes. One more question since we're, I guess, talking broadly about space. How launch capacity, there's several large launch providers out there that have the ability to put up satellites with certain amounts of frequency. And I guess the question partly is, does SpaceX have such -- because they control so much of the capacity of launch, can they just with their high frequency of launch just put them on and just crowd out a lot of aspiring constellations? Because there's a lot of constellations as you wind -- or sorry, as you demonstrated. And yes, just how does launch capacity play with kind of the building out of constellation?

Look, right now, I think launch capacity globally continues to expand. We have up-and-comers in the launch business that are continuing to mature and continuing to advance their rocket systems to be able to bring more capacity to launch. So that continues to be a bit of a growing part of the business. I have not bumped into anybody yet. It may exist out there, but I have not bumped into anybody else that says, "I can't get my business plans accomplished because I can't get access to launch." So we -- I haven't seen that yet. People are getting access to what they need based on their business plans to be able to launch, and the cost to launch continues to come down. I think that as the larger rocket systems come into play in the next 5 years, so in the SpaceX example that most people see on the media most often is Starship. But we've seen some Blue Origin rocket activity now. We see Rocket Lab is working on their next-generation larger rockets. So as these larger rockets come into play, then that's going to further increase capacity. So we get along well, for example, like with SpaceX and the other launch companies. And designing our satellites into the various launch systems works well. Our customers are getting the access that they need. And so I think that as interest in space and space networks and space observation and space infrastructure continues to expand, these larger rocket systems that will come into play in the next 5 years will have a major step function increase in launch capacity. And right now in a Falcon 9, maybe you've got, I don't know, 16 to 20 are the most satellites in the nose cone of a rocket. In a Starship, you could have like 150, 200, so very different capacity to be able to get things into orbit. So I think that the launch will keep up with the opportunity from what we can see so far. And it will only get cheaper with those volumes.

Right. Going back to some of the wins. We mentioned, I can't remember if we talked about it, while the mic was hot or not, you guys recently announced a follow-on order from Globalstar.

With Globalstar, yes.

I don't know if you call a follow-on, I guess, for kind of a new set of birds, right, altogether different than what you're currently doing for them. So let's spend a few minutes talking about what exactly Globalstar intends to do with that. I think it's no secret that Apple is a big customer of theirs, and this direct-to-device constellation that they're putting up is to help support or kind of enable Apple's ability to begin using our iPhones anywhere in the world. But I think a week, 10 days ago, there was an announcement that there are -- Apple is also going to be testing out their phones on Starlink as well. So help us kind of understand what the development of this technology looks like and why somebody like Apple might be helping to support Globalstar, but also working with Starlink. Why would they do that?

Yes. So first of all, I won't know the answer because I'm not inside that tent. And so my job is to provide satellites to Globalstar. Globalstar's job is to operate a space network. Yes, Apple is their largest customer for that space network. So that's how that hierarchy works. And then Apple decides what it wants to do with that network capacity. Certainly, what we're doing is building direct-to-device satellites for Globalstar. So that is for the direct-to-device communications. I think that like my just really just observation of these things is to take terrestrial activity and then apply it to space. So a company like Apple wants their devices to work on all the mobile networks in the world, presumably, they would want their devices to work on all global networks, which will include space networks. And if you see the relationships that are developing, it's a lot of the same players, right? So you've got the phone companies in the example that you mentioned with SpaceX, T-Mobile working with SpaceX and Starlink to be able to add space network capacity to its offering in the market. And so the phone developers are going to want their phones to operate on these networks. And so -- but then there is the Globalstar network, which is, for sure, obviously really well connected into Apple to be able to provide, for sure, service globally for the features that they're putting in their devices. So there's a -- that's there and then there's like make sure it works wherever it needs to work.

So the capabilities that you are launching for Globalstar that will help support the apps devices, it will be voice, text?

Right now, we provide satellites that have capacity. What you -- what features you put over that capacity, if you work up the hierarchy of emergency texting to normal texting to data to voice to video or something, I think that would probably be the hierarchy in terms of the insatiable appetite for capacity. It would move up a ladder like that. That's a business decision that would be like a Globalstar and their customers' business decision about how much capacity you put in the network, what features and functions are you going to enable in the market and all that kind of stuff. Our job is just to make sure we put satellites out there that have the capacity requested.

Right. Okay. So to put a button on this, so you've got your space systems business that has secured quite a few contracts here, decent-sized backlog.

Yes. Going well.

Pipeline, you're expanding your capacity. You've got a new digital payload. And so we will see lots of revenue growth and potential margin expansion with that? Or is this...

I think definitely revenue growth. Like for us as a company right now, we've been talking about that we expect to grow over this 5-year period that we're in right now at about a 25% CAGR. And we are. That seems to be happening. And so that's -- and then if you look at like what's driving that, increasingly, what's driving that is just execution of our backlog. We were sort of guiding towards doing around $1 billion of revenue last year. And we're coming into '25 now with like a $5 billion backlog with this new Globalstar order. So typically, that's around 36 months duration contracts-ish. So if you're doing $5 billion of backlog over 3 years, like just your execution of our signed contracts is going to cause continued growth in the business as we go through time with a large pipeline to keep hopefully filling, replacing, expanding that backlog. So we're definitely in growth mode as we go forward into the future. On this -- on the communication satellites, as we activate a year from now, that sort of high-volume manufacturing capacity, there'll be legitimate opportunities, I think, to -- with new orders continue to have high volume, which has the chance for lower cost because you're procuring the volume. And then a lot of opportunity for learning under high-volume manufacturing, which could further decrease costs. So as a result of those things, you could get some margin expansion. Like logically, you would expect to. Right now, we're not forecasting any. We hold the position that we're a 19% to 20% sort of EBITDA company. But our eyes on the ball for sure, to get this set up, operate it, make the most of it. Logically 2, 3 years from now, we should expect to have some opportunity there.

Right, right. Okay. We've got 4 minutes left. I want to spend a few more minutes on the other 2 businesses. We'll do like rapid-fire, if that's okay.

Sure. Yes.

So let's talk really quickly about the robotics business and the growth drivers there and some of the unique partnerships, I think, that you have formed and maybe some investments as well. So just talk if you think about 3, 4 things that are going to drive that business over the next 5 years.

Biggest thing is execution on Canadarm3. We've got a large $1 billion-plus contract there for high-end artificial intelligence-based, next-generation robotics system. And so just executing on that over the next 3 or 4 years will continue to cause and to drive growth. Second is MDA SKYMAKER, commercial product line going into the commercial space stations under development, on-orbit servicing and space-based assembly, manufacturing. So there's a good pipeline there of conversations so that over the next 5 years have the chance to result in some decent orders there. On some of the commercial space stations, we have taken like at least a small equity position in one of them. And there would be opportunities for us to do that with others. That's not an exclusive relationship. So us partnering with space infrastructure players, space stations or other types of space infrastructure and bringing the robotic systems and robotic operations as part of that capability, that's definitely an emerging opportunity for us. And then the moon would be another one, whereby -- and that introduces other big projects like full rover projects. Canada has $1 billion rover project for the moon. So we would actively pursue that. We're on a team for NASA's rover project for the moon. And so if that team wins, that will be another great opportunity. So these are larger opportunities for us to get involved in lunar infrastructure with our robotics rover's remote operation-type resume, that will bring another opportunity for growth.

Okay. Okay, great. And then on the geointelligence side of things, you have AURORA coming online.

Of course. Yes, of course.

AURORA is the form factor for the communications, sorry.

Yes, yes.

Too many celestial things going on here. But on CHORUS, talk a little bit about the vision here. So you've got a base business today on RADARSAT. I would imagine some of that will -- you'll transition that over to CHORUS. But what's the growth opportunity once CHORUS is up and running?

Yes. I think it seems to be strong. Like we have a strong customer base that's been with us for a long time on RADARSAT-2. They're excited about CHORUS. And so dozens of conversations literally like with customers around the world about what their CHORUS buy would look like, and people are looking to expand in a number of cases, expand what they would like to do with us. So that's a great feeling. So as we go through this last sort of 16, 18 months before launch, like that all those things come in to get firm now. So that's very exciting. So I think that we do have legitimate growth that will come from that in terms of the additional orders. And then I think over time, like we'll keep looking at CHORUS as a constellation and look at what partnerships and combined data offering. So many customers now want data fusion, they want information from different data sources to be able to solve their information question. And so we work with a lot of other satellite operators and providers. And so I think that building those sort of fused information products for customers will be a second area of growth in addition to just pure data growth from CHORUS. And then that team, as I mentioned, it sells Earth and space observation satellites to primarily the Canadian government. There's a multibillion-dollar pipeline there over the next 7 years for Canadian government satellites that they're pursuing. So they'll get lift in that business as well over the next, like I say, 5 to 7 years coming as a result of just selling additional satellites.

And your satellite systems business will build those?

Usually. Usually. Like not every time, but most time.

Right. Okay. And so Planet on the electro-optical side recently announced that they contracted with a unnamed country to go build a constellation of electro-optical satellites and they'll operate the satellite. So kind of like an outsourced national accounts [indiscernible] for a country. But that's for electro-optical. Are you seeing similar demand signals on the SAR side of things?

I think that there is a bit of a trend of governments going commercial, not necessarily to buy the satellites like in the Planet example, that's what you mentioned, but to pick up the service commercially. Like the U.S. DoD is going commercial, NATO says they're going to have a commercial space plan published in '25. We see India having a commercial element of their space plan. So like a number of countries around the world that have capability are looking to like pick up a commercial service as opposed to just building and launching and operating their own satellites. So commercial partnership is definitely a trend that we talk to folks around the world with, whether that's to pick up data from CHORUS and/or what can we do together to have a domestic capability. So there is a bit of an increased conversation level around the world like that. Yes.

Yes. Okay, great. I just noticed that we're -- the clock is going the wrong direction. We're sort of overtime.

That means we're negative time, yes.

Yes. Yes, exactly. So with that, Mike, I want to thank you. Thank you very much. Thanks, everybody, in the audience for listening in, and look forward to doing it again next year.

We'll see you next time. Always good coming to Miami, don't worry.

All right.