Artemis 2 will be the big news for the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) in the coming weeks, along with the suite of Moon announcements released in this week’s budget.
That’s all very important, but here we will focus on not only that, but other matters in the CSA’s 2023-24 Departmental Plan (DP) to talk about other important agency programs and matters, to provide context on what else the CSA is thinking about in the coming fiscal year.
The CSA was unable to provide commentary on the plan, as that is the purview of the Finance Department. SpaceQ has also reached out to the Finance Department to clarify how much of the below represents new spending, and we are waiting for their response.
Artemis 2 and ISS CAN4
Canadarm3 and Artemis 2 are of course highlighted prominently in the plan, but the DP is also suggesting the space sector may be able to put in “lunar infrastructure” like rovers, communications networks and perhaps a greenhouse. Of course, we already know the CSA is planning a mini-rover in 2026, and Budget 2023 also brought forth a new lunar utility vehicle. The mini-rover’s preliminary design will be completed in 2023-4, the DP pledges, and the CSA will also be tasked with proposal calls for two Canadian lunar science instruments.
The CSA is famous for making niche bets in the space industry, which is why the agency is not targeting more ambitious projects like modules or large sets of hardware. Canadarm3 is where the bulk of spending is going, in fact. The DP says the budget is at a high level in 2023-24 representing payouts for lunar ventures and Canadarm3.
The 2023-24 budgetary spending estimates are $476,342,693 on Canada in space along with $61,059,544 in internal services, for a total budget of $537,402,237. Internal services will remain largely consistent or slightly grow in 2024-25 and 2025-26, while planned spending on Canada in space will drop to $265,605,491 in 2024-25 and $203,502,941 in 2025-6. This will put spending on that segment well below 2020-1 actual expenditures of $271,954,249.
The moon is of course not the CSA’s only focus. Our 2.3% share of activities in the International Space Station (ISS) means that under current post-shuttle flight schedules, astronauts fly there every six years. Chris Hadfield flew in 2012-13 and next came David Saint-Jacques in 2018-19. (In the shuttle era, Bob Thirsk also had a long-duration mission in 2009 and met up with CSA shuttle flyer Julie Payette and Canadian space tourist Guy Laliberté while on the ISS.)
Right on schedule, the CSA’s DP has confirmed there will be a “CAN4” mission (the fourth long-duration mission of a Canadian astronaut on the ISS) launching between 2024 and 2025. “Project planning and requirements will occur in 2023–24 to support the Canadian astronaut and science missions,” the DP states. Like the Artemis 2 astronaut, the identity of the Canadian is not yet known, but we may find that information relatively soon.
According to the DP, the Canadian ISS experiment results to watch for in the coming months and years include:
- TBone, “which could help doctors predict who is at higher risk of fractures by investigating bone loss in astronauts”;
- SANSORI, “which will contribute to our understanding of conditions, such as glaucoma, and of the impact of cardiovascular disease on eyesight by studying vision changes experienced by astronauts”;
- Wayfinding, which “has the potential to help people with balance disorders by observing how astronauts’ brains create new pathways to navigate their surroundings in a weightless environment”;
- CARDIOBREATH, which will “monitor how the cardiac and respiratory systems adapt to a weightless environment, which lowers blood pressure and has many effects”;
- The ongoing Vascular series, including Vascular Aging and Vascular Calcium, which “could improve our understanding of cardiovascular diseases, the number one cause of death on Earth.”
Satellite Earth Observation
Moving along in the already released 2022–30 Satellite Earth Observation (SEO) Strategy, agency officials said they will be focusing on initiatives like sustainable food production or ecosystem monitoring as possible applications of the strategy (alongside the more obvious ones such as climate change or weather monitoring.)
Environment and Climate Change Canada, along with Natural Resources Canada, remain key department partners in the SEO strategy, but the DP said it will have “sustained relationships with over 17 departments” overall. WildFireSat is again mentioned in the budget, along with some procurement details. CSA aims to “employ agile competitive procurement methods, issuing up to four contracts to companies for solutions meeting requirements within a firm-fixed price.”
The DP also discusses a new funding opportunity under SmartEarth for 2023-24 “for fundamental and applied research in the academic community,” which intends to “further the knowledge and capacity of Canadian EO experts, while building the critical mass of researchers and highly qualified personnel in the EO field.” The EO community will also be asked for engagement for the “proposed Canadian EO exploitation platform Digital Earth Canada” in 2023-4, the DP says.
Canada will also play a role as the charter leading agency of the International Charter “Space and Major Disasters” consortium of which our country is a part, providing synthetic aperture radar data from the RADARSAT Constellation Mission and RADARSAT-2. Canada’s lead role will occur starting in October 2023 for six months, alongside the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites, the DP says.
The DP is also, as CSA has been saying for some time, pledging to increase RCM access through applications, services and open data initiatives. Studies to figure out the RCM successor will continue under the agency’s Earth Observation Service Continuity (EOSC) initiative, and work is also starting to replace the 20-year-old SCISAT that is key for climate change monitoring. Regarding SCISAT, the DP pledges that CSA will “focus on a potential satellite that would complement [that of] international partners, while addressing the various needs of SCISAT’s data user base”, which go across governments, industry and academia.
Other Programs and Procurement
The government’s economy-focused budget also brought in a new shade of meaning to the long-running Space Technology Development Program (STDP) and Lunar Exploration Accelerator Program (LEAP) that aim to provide commercial funding to smaller companies.
The DP is now framing these two programs not only as beneficial for space, but also as a sort of stabilizer for the industry in the uncertain economic environment that faces us now. To take STDP as an example, this is what the department says:
“Having committed close to $200M and supported over 100 organizations since 2008 the STDP will continue to strengthen core Canadian capabilities with its 2023–24 wave of investments and continued support for ongoing projects. For example, the five companies working on concepts for Canadian infrastructure on the moon – such as greenhouses, rovers for transporting humans, communications networks or power systems for generating energy – will move to prototyping their solutions in the fall of 2023. Out of the seven proposed concepts, five will be selected, further increasing the Canadian space sector’s expertise, commercial and industrial capabilities.”
On a related note, the DP says the CSA plans to launch a “SpaceHub”, which will be “a collaborative platform designed to position the CSA as a pivotal player in the procurement of space-based services and solutions.”
It is unclear how this will fit in with more traditional procurement platforms and instruments used by the federal government, but we will monitor this and provide more information when available. The DP says the platform will aim to be “connecting scientists and entrepreneurs, enabling innovative SMEs [small- and medium-sized enterprises] to adapt and capture the opportunities of the rapidly evolving global space economy.”
Milestones are also coming up for some of CSA’s tech development programs and challenges. The Deep Space Food Challenge will see the four Canadian finalist teams operate prototypes by 2024, with the grand prize winner selected in the spring of that year.
Five finalists are also finishing up work under the Deep Space Healthcare Challenge that will demonstrate remote healthcare technology in a simulated environment; the grand prize winner will be announced in winter 2024. The connected care module (C²M²) prototypes will also be completed in 2023-24 ahead of “expected deployment and testing in remote communities.”
Going forward, the CSA is also pledging to include 5% of its contracts for Indigenous business, including 2% of regular contracts and 3% for set-asides.