Canadian space companies spoke about the opportunities facing them – and the challenges they are trying to mitigate – during an industry discussion Thursday (May 26).
The panel at the virtual Aerospace Industries Association of Canada (AIAC) included Ewan Reid, president and CEO of Mission Control Space Services; Chris Pogue, CEO of Thales Canada; Daniel Schulten, director of business development for space at Airbus; and Patrick Thera, president of advanced technologies at Calian.
While their segments of the space industry are diverse, the four industry leaders called on more government support and direction to help with staying competitive in a quickly changing industry.
“The problem, I think, is that other countries are really stepping it up,” Reid said of investment in the industry, which in relative terms means that Canadians are “probably a little bit behind” despite recent Canadian Space Agency (CSA) initiatives and other programs in government.
“A really tangible thing that we can do to ensure that space is recognized as a national key strategic imperative,” he said, suggesting a national space council chaired by the Prime Minister may be beneficial to have a “whole of government approach” to space industry initiatives.
To be sure, the CSA and other government departments already do such collaborations regularly without the direction of a space council (which itself is a controversy, as there is no activity lately from Canada’s Space Advisory Board). Industry leaders, however, said the top-level direction would allow even greater adaptability in the face of a fast-paced set of industry changes.
Pogue noted that space as a percentage of GDP today appears relatively small, but that is only because the impact of space is not really considered on fields such as agriculture and connectivity of remote areas, which have an impact on larger populations.
For example, the granola industry makes about 90 percent of its money through exports, yet only 10 percent of the farmers are using space-based technologies to assist with monitoring the crop health, Pogue said. “There’s some message here about the ways space fit into everyday lives,” he said, calling for “a more integrated ecosystem across Canada” to assist people whose industries would benefit from more connections to space.
Schulten, participating from Germany in a conference called “The Living Planet,” said he has seen a growth in global space conferences even from 10 or 15 years ago. “There are about 1,000 participants and hundreds of presentations,” he said.
That recognition of space’s importance, he said, has come from numerous industries realizing there is value to “measuring the Earth,” whether it be weather, global warming or other things that affect those companies seeking to make the best opportunities possible on a rapidly changing planet.
Thera pointed to the growth of technologies to support these measurements more autonomously, including electronic vehicles, drones, remote sensing networks and global navigation satellite system antennas. Even cockpit communications, he said, are becoming more integrated as Internet opens up on airlines flying in remote regions.
He said the key to growing further is for the various sectors of Canada touched by space to unite. “Like the UK, I want to see Canada learn to cooperate better amongst ourselves,” because he doesn’t want to see the industry “only serving the interests of a very small group of players.”
He added that spending money in space is a good investment, as it allows Canada to make money in other opportunities – and that investments shouldn’t only be done through large “prime” companies as the smaller ones can also do a lot of good.
Numerous approaches for the future were suggested among the participants. One could be a multi-tiered system of industry partners that aim to together work across a wide range of the space sector, instead of the patchwork approach that is sometimes taken with Canada. (Such an approach may also buffer against a boom-and-bust cycle.)
Another could be to invest in technical institutes to continue to attract talent to Canada and to maintain them, as long as there are strong industry connections upon graduation in which newly minted technicians could find employment.
Commercialization and development beyond government funding is another possible opportunity, if Canadians are willing to embrace “new space” markets that are more emergent. That would, however, require a different risk profile than what some sectors are used to.
That said, participants noted that government funding remains crucial in Canada’s small market as it is often a pathway to commercial products or services (Canadarm being one of the more famous examples.) But they urged more opportunities for small-and-medium enterprises beyond the big integrators who typically get large contracts from government opportunities.
Working with emerging space nations is another way by which Canada could leverage new opportunities, although to be fair, Canada is already participating in the Artemis Accords with NASA. The American-led project is including such diverse entities as Colombia, Luxembourg and the United Arab Emirates. But participants said there might be more pathways to consider in bringing Canada before emerging opportunities.
Other possible vectors that could be used to increase innovation could be increasing patents, allowing for a more flexible risk profile for emerging technologies, and to encourage government to invest in small concept studies or technology development studies along with large procurements.