Regional aerospace company receives federal loan to help boost already state-of-the-art system

Posted on March 12, 2026 by Ryan Dahlman

By Brendan Miller
Southern Alberta Newspapers

A Medicine Hat company says it is best in the world when it comes to ascending drones, or remotely piloted aircraft systems, to extremely high altitudes, and has been awarded a federal loan for its efforts.

On March 2, Eleanor Olszewski, federal minister of Emergency Management and Community Resilience, visited the Landing Zones workshop in Medicine Hat to announce more than $1.1 million in a repayable loan to the local advanced aerospace company.

The money will help create more local jobs and boost the company’s record attempt this summer to send a drone near the edge of space, officials say.

The loan was granted to Landing Zones Canada through the Regional Artificial Intelligence Initiative and will allow the company to expand work on two fronts – defensive and environmental.

Landing Zones is currently developing and testing GITPO remotely piloted aircraft systems, which can reach a flying elevation of above 60,000 feet and will be looking to reach more than 100,000 feet, or more than 30 kilometres, above Earth.

Sending drones into the Earth’s stratosphere could be helpful to detect incoming weapon systems that exploit high altitudes, and the same drone with different modifications can also be used to gather weather data.

“The cool thing about what Landing Zones is doing is they have an AI innovation, and it’s called remotely piloted aircraft system,” explained Olszewski. “And basically AI is used so that these drones can autonomously return to where they were sent from.”

Landing Zones believes it can use these drones to replace weather balloons that are currently used to gather weather temperatures, humidity and wind speed and direction, while eliminating the environmental waste caused by balloons.

These drones are specially built to replace single-use radiosonde, which pollute the environment when they descend back to earth after their use, causing approximately 600,000 shoe-box sized used electronics, which scatter to remote areas around the world.

Spencer Fraser, founder and CEO of Landing Zones, says approximately 24 per cent of the Canadian mass is polluted or littered with single-use products, and says their drones will be able to be reused hundreds of times while being tracked for location.

“Farmers see it in their fields, they clog the combines,” said Fraser.

Medicine Hat Mayor Linnsie Clark says the funding announcement will support Landing Zones and enhance its capabilities, which have the potential to revolutionize atmospheric weather sampling and support defence applications.

“Some people see a problem like weather balloons falling to the Earth and creating environmental issues and see it as a reason to complain, and some people see it as a challenge, a problem to solve.”

In terms of public defence, these high-flying drones are also being designed to be the best at detecting advanced weapons and other drones that are currently being utilized in war across the globe.

Fraser says his company has already gained interest from NASA as well as allied nations Japan, French and Germany, and hopes the technology developed locally will be used as Canada continues to increase its spending to aid the modernization of the North American Aerospace Defense Command, NORAD.

Fraser also cited the importance of defending Canada’s arctic region.

“It’s really taken off,” he said. “And we’re really not following anyone, we’re carving out a new area and it’s pretty humbling to say that we’re the best in the world at what we do.”

And to prove it is the best, Landing Zones will attempt to reach the Canadian altitude record this summer by sending one of its drones 100,000 feet up, high enough to see the curvature of the Earth.

Fraser says Canada is in a race with other countries around the globe to develop this technology as geo-political tensions remain on the rise.

“It’s a worldwide race right now, and we should be under no illusions, we have no time to waste,” said Fraser. “Right now, we know we’re the leaders in the world in stratospheric flight, but we know of other countries that are trying to replicate it, so this all helps us move ahead.”

Last October the government pledged more than $81 billion to increase investments in defence spending, with a target of achieving an increase of two per cent GDP spending by 2032-35.

That spending includes a $6.6-billion pledge to fund the Canada Defence Industrial Strategy aimed at rebuilding the Canadian Forces, and is focused on building within Canada to enhance domestic industry.