Business

The stars have once again aligned for Canada’s leading space firm. Earlier this month, MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates Ltd., now known simply as MDA, a Canadian global communications and information enterprise providing technology solutions to commercial and government organizations worldwide, completed its $2.4 billion purchase of DigitalGlobe, an American-based global provider of high resolution Earth imagery and geospatial information.

On October 2nd MDA’s acquisition of DigitialGlobe closed. The new company formed from this acquisition will be called Maxar Technologies and will have 6,500 employees with $3B in 2016 revenues. Contrast that to January 2008 when MDA thought it had sold its space business to then Alliant Techsystems (ATK), now Orbital ATK, and we’re planning on leaving the space market. Then, as in now, context …

The president of the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) spoke to a younger conference audience than he usually does today, as the Montreal Space Symposium was conceived and organized by students.

My guest this week is none other than my business partner Keith Cowing. Keith and I co-founded SpaceRef 18 years ago.

This Thursday the first of three spacewalks will take place to replace one of the hands, know as Latching End Effectors (LEE) on the station’s Canadarm2.

In his opening statement at the Subcommittee on Space Hearing on Private Sector Lunar Exploration, Brian Babin (R-Texas), Chair of the Subcommittee said “will space be the next sector to lead economic growth?” His answer, ” I don’t know.” It’s an important question and his answer was right.

The Canadian Space Commerce Association (CSCA) will hold in person and online webinar on how the governments proposed tax reforms will impact businesses, in particular those in the space sector.

In recent weeks three key employees from Ontario Drive and Gear (ODG) left the companies space robotic division and moved over to Canadensys Aerospace. Now we know why. Canadensys today announced that it was opening up a new advanced manufacturing facility in the Waterloo region.

The space industry is, quite literally, taking off. Commercial, for-profit actors mark the dawn of a new age of space – one pioneered not by governments, but by private sector trailblazers pushing the development of human space activity to new heights.

In this weeks podcast we spoke with Stephane Germain, CEO of GHGSat. GHGSat is an early stage company based in Montreal looking to become the global reference for remote sensing of greenhouse and air quality gas emissions from industrial sites.