It’s been a rough start to the year for satellite maker Maxar Technologies Ltd. after it forecast a revenue slump and its chief financial officer resigned, but the head of the company sees a growing tailwind from another firm — SpaceX.

Chief Executive Officer Howard Lance says one of the biggest growth drivers for the Westminster, Colorado-based company will be contracts with the U.S. government, thanks in large part to Elon Musk’s Space Exploration Technologies Corp. SpaceX rockets already provide about half of Maxar’s satellite launches including one Tuesday aboard a Falcon 9 from Cape Canaveral in Florida.

“They’ve paved the way for companies like Maxar to have more access to the U.S. government,” Lance said in a phone interview on Wednesday. “They have been an enabler of U.S. government business and probing the U.S. government to look more favourably at commercial company alternatives to the traditional defence contractors.”

Maxar (MAXR.TO) is the worst-performing stock on Canada’s S&P/TSX Industrials index with a 20-per-cent slump since January. The company, whose business includes satellites, robotics, spacecraft systems, imagery and data from operations in San Francisco and Vancouver as well as Colorado, will see revenue from its communications satellite segment decline about 20 per cent this fiscal year after a similar drop last year, Lance said. Revenue for the company overall is forecast to drop two per cent to four per cent in 2018.

“That decline we believe, is halfway near the bottom in 2018,” Lance said. It will likely be 2019 before tailwinds start to pick up, he said.

The company’s shares closed up 1.1 per cent Wednesday at $64.32 in Toronto for a market value of $3.62 billion.

In addition to the U.S., Maxar’s MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates unit will continue to get business from its biggest Canadian customer: Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government, Lance said.

CANADIAN SPACE

“While we now have majority of our revenue and earnings in the U.S. space, that hasn’t diminished our focus as an iconic long-term committed player in Canada,” he said, adding that he’d like to see a more firm commitment to space from the federal government. Canada lags behind its international peers in space funding and it was largely absent from the government’s budget at the end of February.

Lance also hopes to grow Maxar’s satellite imagery business from its acquisition of DigitalGlobe Inc. in October for US$2.4 billion. A similar merger of this size is unlikely given that the company has to pay off debt from the purchase, but it’s looking for smaller acquisitions, including unique technology companies in the space race.

CHINA CAUTION

Maxar is also looking for companies that would expand its geographic reach in the U.K. and Australia. One country Maxar isn’t keen on breaching is China, which is ramping up its space investments. Several government-backed companies have won commercial business over the past several years, Lance said.

“That’s certainly been concerning to us about whether it is a level playing field,” he said. “Countries in the west expressed concerns of China as a global power economically and from a military or intelligence standpoint. Maxar has some commercial customers in China for some imagery products, but China is not a big end market for us and is not likely to be one for those reasons.”

Maxar is also in the market to hire a replacement for former CFO William McCombe who stepped down after less than five months. Anil Wirasekara, who was MacDonald Dettwiler’s CFO from 1994 to 2017, replaced McCombe on an interim basis.

“The departure has nothing to do with financial improprieties or personal misconduct, just a decision he made following earnings announcement,” Lance said. “We want to move quickly and get a permanent replacement for seat.”