Earth Observation

If I told you that over the course of the last seven years upwards of a thousand Canadian students had participated in developing CubeSat missions you might think this was a the result of a Canadian Space Agency (CSA) initiative. You would be wrong though. There was a time the CSA was interested in this, early this decade and before, but poor leadership in government, and to …

UrtherCast reported mixed third quarter earnings yesterday and indicated that it was poised to follow through on its business plan to deliver machine-to-machine Earth observation software as a service.

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 Canadian Space Agency (CSA) has announced a research and development opportunity that is targeted at developers to encourage development of applications that integrate data from multiple earth observation (EO) satellites.

With the recent uptick in the hurricane season, and the devastating storms Harvey and Irma, what type of support does the Canadian Space Agency provide in the event one comes northward to Canada? And with Hurricane Jose heading on a course that could see it brush Nova Scotia as tropical storm, it’s an important issue worth exploring.

I have been prompted to write this Paper with the publication in August of the excellent Space Advisory Board’s (SAB) report titled Consultations on Canada’s Future in Space: What We Heard. This Paper is also the result of analyzing national space policies for many years.

Canada hasn’t had a National Space Policy since 1974. Currently the government is looking to announce a new Space Strategy this fall. Recently, the Space Advisory Board released its report after concluding consultations with stakeholders. On today’s show we’ll get insights on space policy from Graham Gibbs.

Continuing with our Summer Reading Series of articles or interviews that still have some relevance today, we present the June 2012 article I wrote, In the Absence of Government Leadership Canada’s Space Sector Faces Uncertain Future from Space Quarterly Magazine. 

Today the government released the findings of the recently completed Space Advisory Board consultations on Canada’s upcoming new Space Strategy.  The Space Advisory Board report put forward two recommendations  based on six key themes.

When the Liberal government announced the Innovation Superclusters Initiative (ISI) with up to $950 million in funds available through 2022, the space community immediately took notice and began scouring the program guide for details. From the get go, one of the biggest challenges would be the meeting the matching fund requirement of the $125-$250 million for each supercluster.