The Canadian Space Agency is Offering Observing Time on NEOSSat to Scientists

Artist illustration of NEOSSat micro-satellite in space. Credit: Canadian Space Agency.

In a newly posted Announcement of Opportunity (AO), the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) is offering scientists observing time on the NEOSSat satellite.

The CSA’s Near-Earth Object Surveillance Satellite (NEOSSat) was launched six years ago with a space telescope dedicated to detecting and tracking asteroids and satellites.

The satellite is used by the CSA and the Defence Research and Development Canada (DRDC) as part of the High Earth Orbit Surveillance System program which tracks the positions of both satellites and space debris.

This AO is soliciting proposals for the acquisition and analysis of new scientific data however scientists can not submit proposals for Earth observations, imaging satellites or space debris.

According to the CSA “the intent of this AO is to offer observation time on NEOSSat to the scientific community on a competitive basis. CSA is not planning to issue grants as part of this announcement of opportunity (AO). Successful applicants will retrieve requested data on the CSA open data portal. There will be no proprietary period applied to the acquired datasets.”

They further stated “NEOSSat is able to perform space-based imaging including conducting photometric studies with precision sufficient to perform asteroseismology studies and other variability analyses of stars and exoplanet systems. NEOSSat has already demonstrated imaging and photometry of certain exoplanet transits. NEOSSat is well-suited for the study of near-Earth asteroids or comets as it provides near-Sun observing capabilities and can provide direct parallax measurements of nearby objects due to its orbit around Earth.”

The application deadline is September 16, 2019.

About Marc Boucher

Boucher is an entrepreneur, writer, editor & publisher. He is the founder of SpaceQ Media Inc. and CEO and co-founder of SpaceRef Interactive LLC. Boucher has 20+ years working in various roles in the space industry and a total of 30 years as a technology entrepreneur including creating Maple Square, Canada's first internet directory and search engine.

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