On November 18–20, 2021, the Canadian province of Nova Scotia was a venue for a series of events dedicated to the commencement of the implementation of the Cyclone-4M joint project of Ukraine and Canada.

On November 18, 2021, Volodymyr Taftai, Head of the State Space Agency of Ukraine, and Lisa Campbell, President of the Canadian Space Agency, signed a Joint Agreement on partnership relations in the space industry between Ukrainian companies Yuzhnoye State Design Office and Yuzhmash Production Association and Canadian company Maritime Launch Services.

The next day was dedicated to the presentation and a festive ceremony of laying a cornerstone of the future space flight facility for Ukrainian launch vehicle Cyclone-4M. Head of the State Space Agency of Ukraine Volodymyr Taftai, President of the Canadian Space Agency Lisa Campbell, Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry François-Philippe Champagne, Member of Canadian Parliament Sean Fraser, Minister of Economic Development of Nova Scotia Susan Corkum-Greek, President of Maritime Launch Services Stephen Matier, and representatives of Yuzhnoye State Design Office and Yuzhmash Production Association attended the ceremony.

During the presentation to the public of the mockup of the flight control center of the first future commercial space launch site in Canada, it was announced that the launch site would be named after Alexander Degtyarev, former General Director of Yuzhnoye State Design Office.

On November 20, the Ukrainian delegation visited the location of the construction site for the future space flight facility at Cape Canso.

To this joint commercial project of Ukraine and Canada, Yuzhnoye State Design Office contributed the engineering and design solutions that will allow Cyclone-4M, a new medium-lift launch vehicle, to enter the market of space launch services in the nearest future, offering a high level of quality and reliability and a competitive price as well.

Yuzhnoye’s area of responsibility will include the development, testing, and operation of the launch vehicle and assets and systems of the launch site infrastructure. Yuzhmash Machine Building Plant will manufacture and provide Cyclone-4M launch vehicles for Maritime Launch Services.

With its thousands of kilometers of ocean to the east, the province of Nova Scotia is a perfect place for launching space rockets. In addition to this safety feature, the location of Nova Scotia allows ascending payloads to low and medium circular and elliptic Earth orbits, including sun-synchronous orbits.