Business

The government announced today after holding a roundtable discussion in Charlottetown, that further pre-budget consultations with business, academic and sectoral leaders will take place in the New Year at venues across the country, details of which are still forthcoming.

The Canadian Space Agency released its 2010 State of the Canadian Space Sector Report yesterday. The report indicates that revenues in the sector were up 14% over the 2009 and reached $3.4 billion and that 692 new positions were added to the sector, an increase of 9.2%.

MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates Ltd (TSX:MDA) reported strong earnings for the third quarter of 2011 with revenues increasing to $182 million compared to $167 million for the same period last year. MDA was boosted in the third quarter by U.S. operations and medical robotics.

When the National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System Preparatory Project (NPP) is launched Friday, an interferometer built by the ABB company will be onboard. The first of a new generation of US meteorological satellites is to be launched by NASA on October 28, at 5:48:01 a.m. EDT.

MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates Ltd. (MDA) has signed a US$17 million, 12 month contract with the U.S. National Geospatial Intelligence Agency (NGA) to provide apparent changes in land-cover anywhere around the globe.

November it seems is unofficially “space” month in Canada with a trio of national conferences including the 3rd Canadian Science Policy Conference, the first Canadian Aerospace Summit and the annual Canadian Space Summit with Ottawa and Calgary hosting these three events.

MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates Ltd. (MDA) has signed an agreement with the European Space Agency (ESA) for RADARSAT-2 data, this coming shortly after announcing a deal with Russian.

After two years of holding a joint space mining conference in partnership with the Space Resources Roundtable (SRR), organizer Dale Boucher from the Northern Centre for Advanced Technology Inc. (NORCAT) says space and terrestrial mining are becoming more “joined at the hip” and as such, it’s becoming more feasible to do such work in space.

As the space shuttle program came to an end the final mission of Atlantis to the International Space Station (ISS) delivered the Robotic Refueling Mission (RRM) platform which in November will be used to demonstrate and test tools, technologies, and techniques needed to robotically refuel satellites in space. And while the project is a joint effort between NASA and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) the …