Last Wednesday, the University of New Brunswick was the place to be where for the national Science Fair and where the two winners of the Little Inventors: Inventions for Space contest were announced.

The RADARSAT Constellation Mission (RCM) satellites were packed up and transported from Montreal to Palo Alto, California in preparation for their launch. They travelled the 4,800 km journey by way of a custom modified trailer owned by International Machine Transport (IMT), specialists in transporting these kinds of cargo.

This week NASA released its budget amendment to account for the Trump administration’s desire to accelerate the country’s plan to land humans on the moon in 2024 instead of 2018. The new plan has created problems for NASA’s international partners who are scrambling to see what it means for them. Canada is no exception.

Maxar Technologies announced last Friday that MDA, its Canadian division, had won a contract from the Government to provide 10 flight-ready Search and Rescue/Global Positioning System (SAR/GPS) repeaters.

NASA revealed in teleconference with media last night that it had formally named its return to the moon program, Artemis. In Greek mythology, Artemis was the twin sister of Apollo. More importantly for the program, NASA sent Congress its budget amendment request for the fiscal year 2020.

This week the European Space Agency (ESA) is holding what they say is the largest Earth observation conference to date, with over 4,000 participants attending.

SpaceX is scheduled to launch 60 Starlink demonstration satellites on a Falcon 9 this Wednesday without using a traditional dispenser.

This week over 700 students, teachers and members of East Three School (elementary and secondary) in Inuvik, Northwest Territories participated in a live event with astronaut David Saint-Jacques onboard the International Space Station after winning the Bring Space to Your School contest.

There was some irony in yesterday’s announcement by Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos that his company was ready to assist NASA in having Americans return to the moon’s surface by 2024.

In April the Trump administration surprised everyone by announcing that it was directing NASA to land American astronauts on the moon within five years.