Deadline Date: July 02, 2026
The Department of National Defence (DND) and the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) are inviting innovative research and development solutions to create a laboratory-based flatsat platform that enables cybersecurity experimentation, testing, and validation for secure satellite systems.
Focus areas include providing a flat satellite (flatsat) platform for cybersecurity experimentation, supporting the design and validation of secure satellite software and hardware architectures, developing cyber defence mechanisms, enhancing hybrid space network (HSN) security and resilience, enabling secure cross-segment integration concepts, implementing trust models and segmentation approaches, creating remote-access environments for cybersecurity competitions and training exercises, and advancing secure operations and information flows between space-based and ground-based nodes.
The challenge aims to develop a ground-based satellite platform that replicates operational satellite subsystems and allows controlled cybersecurity testing without impacting active military space systems. The flatsat platform should support experimentation across multiple satellite functions, including communications, sensing, navigation, scientific measurements, weather and meteorology, and other payload combinations.
The proposed solution must include subsystems that replicate the proven functionality of operational satellites, with at least two payloads, including a communications payload accessible through a wired interface. The platform must fit within a laboratory floor space of no more than 2.5m x 2.5m and allow technicians to connect cyber instrumentation such as oscilloscopes and signal analyzers through a plug-and-play hardware layout.
The solution should include a telemetry, tracking, and command (TT&C) module accessible through a wired interface, along with a modular, reconfigurable, and reprogrammable software architecture supporting software updates, firmware patching, and hardware component replacement. It should also provide administrative capabilities for health monitoring, bus input/output, configuration management, and secure software updates.
Additional requirements include exploring cybersecurity architecture concepts for strengthening hybrid space networks, developing innovative cybersecurity protection mechanisms, and creating a remote-access environment that enables controlled experimentation, scenario management, user access control, and cybersecurity training activities.
The challenge encourages solutions that integrate more than two payloads, as additional payload diversity will enhance technical innovation, increase system realism, and expand cybersecurity validation opportunities.
The Department of National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces aim to advance secure and resilient hybrid space networks by enabling hands-on cyber experimentation on realistic satellite systems. The flatsat platform will help address the limitations of testing on operational military space systems where direct experimentation is often not possible.
Under Phase 2, selected companies may receive contracts with maximum funding of up to CAD 2,000,000 excluding applicable taxes, shipping, travel, and living expenses. The contract duration may extend up to 20 months, with an estimated two Phase 2 contracts expected to be awarded.
Eligible applicants must be for-profit businesses incorporated in Canada, have 499 or fewer full-time equivalent employees, conduct research and development activities in Canada, and meet specified requirements related to Canadian-based employees, wages, and senior executives.
For more information, visit Government of Canada.
