The year 1971 marks the start of an ambitious project as part of the Canadian Space Program: to design and build an experimental high-power, high frequency (Ku-Band), communications satellite to demonstrate direct-to-home broadcasting. The Communications Technology Satellite, renamed HERMES, was a joint effort between Canada, which supplied the satellite and the United States, which supplied the high-power traveling wave tube amplifier and launch services.

While demonstrating new communications capabilities and services, the HERMES Program would advance Canadian industrial expertise in the design and manufacture of satellites and satellite subsystems. In support of those objectives, the Government of Canada also undertook to build a national facility capable of supporting the environmental testing needs of satellite subsystems. The facility was named the David Florida Laboratory in honour of the late C. David Florida, Manager of the HERMES Program.

Evolving with client needs

Officially opened in September 1972, the David Florida Laboratory (DFL) consisted of a single high-bay clean room integration and storage area, a series of small thermal vacuum chambers, a 53 kN (12 k lbf) vibration table, and a 6 x 6 x 6 m (20 x 20 x 20 ft) anechoic chamber. The DFL was built as part of the Communications Research Centre (CRC) site which had been given the responsibility for the development of the HERMES spacecraft. HERMES was successfully launched on January 17, 1976, aboard a three-stage, Delta 2916 rocket. Although designed for a two-year lifetime, the satellite operated for almost four years and contributed materially to the advancement of Canadian capabilities in space.

From that modest beginning, the DFL has become Canada’s national facility for spacecraft assembly, integration, and test. It is a world-class, full-service, environmental-test facility capable of qualifying the world's most advanced space systems.