Tag Archives: This Week in Space for Canada

It’s the summer silly season and signs of life in Ottawa and at the John H. Chapman Space Centre in the sleepy Montreal south shore suburb of Longueuil are noticeably absent. So thank goodness for the joint European Space Agency (ESA)/NASA ExoMars mission, expected to hunt for signs of life on the red planet during 2016-2018, which yesterday announced a series of mission instruments for …

Thank goodness we’re not the American’s because US space competitiveness has eroded in each of the past three years according to the Futron Space Competitiveness Index, which considers Russia the big winner in space because of its recently doubled space budget and focus on monetizing national space investments but which also concedes that Europe, Japan, China and India are also expanding their activities. So how …

India launches a Norwegian micro-satellite built by a Canadian university without any help from the American space program, which insists that it’s “not dead yet” as the U.S. Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee “unanimously” approves legislation adding an extra shuttle mission and development funds for their proposed heavy-lift rocket while the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) just might possibly have said something if it wasn’t …

Julie Payette ponders her possible future as an ex-astronaut while pundits and commentators speculate on whether current astronaut Chris Hadfield will return to space anytime soon and everyone else seems to want the Russians to launch more rockets. All that and more on this second day after Canada Day, this week in space for Canada.

Engineering job fairs proliferate all along the Florida “space” coast as the US shuttle program winds down, while in Canada alternative space propulsion gains momentum and I personally have to “apologize profusely” as the Canadian Space Agency becomes a paying customer to launch the upcoming “CASade, Smallsat and IOnospheric Polar Explorer” (CASSIOPE) satellite on a Falcon-9 rocket. All that and more, this week in space …

The worldwide commercial space market heats up as Iridium Satellite Communications caps a two billion dollar turnaround with a $492 million USD launch contract to Elon Musk and his Space-X cowboys. Meanwhile, back in Canada our federal government finally ponies up another $26.4 million CDN to MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates (MDA) to continue work on phase “C” of the RADARSAT Constellation mission and COMDEV International …

Elon Musk has his fully functioning Falcon 9 rocket. South Korea has their Space Launch Vehicle-1 (NARO-1) on the pad at the Naro Space Center, the Indians are busy perfecting their cryogenic liquid fueled rocket and even the English are beginning to wonder why the Virgin Galactic VSS Enterprise is scheduled to take off and land “only in America, you say” as Canadian space focused …

Raising money for mining ventures is something that Canadians do very, very well indeed and since the huge media event this week is about the big BP oil spill off the gulf coast, this week in space for Canada will focus on leveraging our acknowledged financial expertise to move some money out of terrestrial resource gathering and into our cash starved space activities.

This week in space for Canada is all about getting re-acquainted with old friends both in-person at the Canadian Astronautics and Space Institute (CASI) 15th Annual Astro 2010 conference held in Toronto from May 4th – 6th and on the written page via the relaunch of an old friend, The Canadian Space Gazette.

“And there you have it, the Great Canadian Handshake,” then astronaut Steve MacLean said over a scratchy radio from space back in 2006 after using the Canadarm2 on the International Space Station (ISS) to grasp 16 tonnes of machinery handed to him by a second Canadarm on the space shuttle Atlantis.