Honeywell is a worldwide company with more than 130,000 employees, about 3600 of whom work in Canada. Back in 2015, they announced they were buying COM DEV, a company based in Cambridge, Ontario. At the time, it looked like a smart decision.
This week on the Space Q Podcast, I’m talking with Marina Mississian, Senior Director Space Payloads at Honeywell Aerospace. Marina has been around since the COM DEV days and has spent 26 years working between COM DEV and Honeywell.
Out of the 3,600 people working for Honeywell Aerospace in Canada, most are located in Ontario. Around 500 of them work specifically in the space division.
When Honeywell took over COM DEV, it seemed like a good move but by 2017 things got tough. The GEO Communication satellite market that COM DEV served had basically collapsed – orders dropped almost 75%. Honeywell responded by scaling back operations and letting go nearly half the staff.
Since then though, they’ve been shaking things up. Recently they revealed plans for a new Greenhouse Incubator right here in Ottawa. They looked at other places too-including some US spots-but chose Canada because of different reasons like government support.
They also decided to build a manufacturing line for their new Reaction Wheels in Cambridge. These wheels were actually designed in the US originally. One Web is one of their main customers for these Reaction Wheels. Now, they’re developing next-gen Reaction Wheels at that Ottawa Greenhouse Incubator.
Another cool tech being worked on there is optical communications links-these will be used on Telesat’s satellite network.
The interesting thing is all these new technologies coming out of Canada aren’t just for one client; they’re made to be sold to as many buyers as possible.
In my chat with Marina we talk about everything from recent challenges to how Honeywell has rethought its Canadian space operations, what this Greenhouse Incubator really means, and where the company wants to head next.
Give it a listen.
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