News

Anyone who has watched a science fiction movie about travelling in space knows that the weightless environment of microgravity on a space ship affects your ability to navigate and orient yourself. But in real life, the impact of microgravity on an astronaut’s brain both in space and after returning to earth has received very little scientific attention.

Canadian Space Agency (CSA) astronaut David Saint-Jacques returned from Russia where he has been undergoing training for his upcoming mission to the International Space Station to present Inuksuk High School with a Canada from Space giant floor map and a new educational activity designed for northern communities.

The International Astronautical Congress is the pre-eminent international meeting of the year for the global space community. Global leaders from national space agencies, commercial companies, engineers, scientists, and student gather together to take the pulse of the community and to do business. This year, the 67th International Astronautical Congress was held in Guadalajara, Mexico.

This week the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) issued an announcement of opportunity (AO) for researchers to participate in a stratospheric balloon flight in Alice Springs, Australia in April 2017. The AO is part of the Flight for the Advancement of Science and Technology (FAST) program.

Among the 13 recommendations from the Canada – UK Colloquium report, Space: Obstacles and Opportunities, is the recommendation that “Canada should recognize Space as a component in its Critical National Infrastructure”.

The Perimeter Institute published today that a team led by the Institute’s Tim Johannsen along with the University of Waterloo have demonstrated a new method for testing the theory of general relativity using black holes.

The Canadian Space Agency (CSA) is looking to develop and advance two Priority Technologies (PT); Integral field Spectroscopy for Near Infrared (NIR) Wide Field Imaging (PT1) and Radiometric Calibration System for Large Astronomical Focal Plane (PT2), and is offering two contracts valued up to at $1.4 million for PT1 and $600,000 for PT2.

Euronews has published a report for the European Space Agency (ESA) on Canada’s expertise in space robotics. “Robots are an essential companion to mankind in space, and many of the modern-day masters of these robots are to be found in Montreal, home to the Canadian Space Agency.”

The Canadian Space Agency (CSA) will issue a call for Letters of Intent from post-secondary institutions later this month to develop a CubeSat. The intent is to have one CubeSat built in each province and territory and to have them launched.

MaxQ, which announced in late April it was starting a space accelerator in Kitchener-Waterloo with a first cohort in September, is hosting an Information Day on Monday, July 25th at Communitech where it will be based out of.