BAIKONUR, KAZAKHSTAN – As the world’s attention was focused on the Expedition 56/57 crew launch here Wednesday, David Saint-Jacques worked quietly to make sure that his crewmates were prepared for their journey to the International Space Station. Among his duties was holding a video camera during suit-up, to document the activities as the crew was sealed in their spacesuits.

BAIKONUR, KAZAKHSTAN – The Canadian Space Agency is positioning its astronaut David Saint-Jacques for a possible spacewalk when he goes to the International Space Station (ISS) in December.

Amid a fragile economic situation, the government of Ukraine has asked Canadian giant MDA to complete a satellite project on hold for four years.

It’s still hard to spot the Canadarm among the warplanes at the Canada Aviation and Space Museum (CASM), but director-general Chris Kitzan says this will change shortly.

While exactEarth’s chief executive remains coy about how the “strategic alternative” search is going, he says the Earth observation company picked its timing carefully to look at a possible sale, merger or other activity to maximize shareholder value.

With the launch this week of the SpaceX Falcon Heavy and the discussion in the media about Canada’s lack of launch capability, we thought we would publish a couple of articles from the Space Quarterly print magazine archives that have never been published online. This second article was published in September 2012 and is written by journalist Elizabeth Howell.

The Canadian space sector needs to stop the “cross talk” and unite its message after the government releases a Canadian space strategy, said Iain Christie, executive vice-president of the Aerospace Industries Association of Canada. The importance of space will be lost if everyone presents different messages and priorities to the public, he added.

The Canadian north’s need for reliable satellites was vividly illustrated in October 2011, when a software error aboard Telesat satellite Anik F2 caused it to malfunction.