The final panel discussion of the 2024 Space Bound conference — Harnessing Earth Observation to Support Canada’s National Priorities — discussed how much Canadian owned-and-operated Earth observation (EO) satellites can do for Canada.
There’s a very simple reason why EO satellites are so appropriate for observing conditions here:
“Canada’s territory is super big,” said Ricky Rios, Planet’s Director of Customer Success. “To observe the entirety of the landmass and the water features around it, we need something at scale that we can look at every single day.” He added that EO satellites can serve a range of use cases, “from observing biodiversity, and how our shores are changing due to climate change or other impacts. It also gives us the reach to those places that we can’t get into.”
There’s an equally simple reason why Canadian owned EO companies are good for this country. Take the case of Wyvern Space, an EO company located in Edmonton. Given its strong domestic customer base, Wyvern builds solutions “based primarily on the needs of Canadians,” said Kurtis Broda, the company’s Co-founder and VP of Product. “I think if you rely on just purely international partners, you miss out a lot of the key process of talking with the Canadian community and then building solutions based on that. What other companies are offering in other countries may not quite suit the needs of what is needed locally.”
Going forward, the Canadian EO sector is well-placed to satisfy the growing domestic demand for space-based imagery. In fact, “I don’t think we give ourselves enough credit when we look at these things, especially looking at the use of remote sensing and earth observation that has gone on in Canada,” said Michael Henschel, Director of C-CORE. “We have a good 40 years with a very good understanding of what’s going on, on the ground. We are now seeing that blow up in such a fantastic way using artificial intelligence methods and machine learning methods to do that.”
This being said, the Canadian EO sector could do so much more for Canada if startups in this area received sufficient financial backing to let them grow and thrive. “In this country, we don’t have enough investment in high risk/early reward projects,” said Dr. Pooneh Maghoul, Full Professor at Polytechnique Montréal. “And I don’t want to blame government,” she added. “It’s not the job of government to do that.”
Given the concerns stated in an earlier Space Bound panel discussion that a Conservative government under Pierre Poilievre won’t be as supportive of Canadian space companies as the current Liberal regime, Dr. Maghoul’s assessment may have struck an appropriate tone. Time will tell if the Canadian space industry will be forced to rely on private sector resources, if the next federal election leads to a change in the ruling party.
- Read more coverage from the 2024 Space Bound conference.
- Related: Minister Champagne Announces $1 Billion for RADARSAT+ at Space Bound 2023