Education

The Launch Canada student rocketry competition, now independent from the Anangokaa (formerly Stardust) Festival, is largely staying the course as it moves towards its 2024 event. The major change to the competition: further expansion, as Launch Canada begins to incorporate local high school students into the competition.

The Canadian Space Agency is taking a new student-focused “Rover Driving Academy” Canada-wide. According to an announcement from Mission Control, whose Spacefarer technology is used for the lunar rover simulation, the CSA is working with Mission Control “to provide the Rover Driving Academy for students across Canada.” 

With the theme of food in space, the 2023-24 winners of the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) Space Brain Hack student Initiative have been announced. This is the second year of the initiative.

The Canadian CanSat Design Challenge (CCSDC) recently finished the 2023-2024 launch campaign. The four-day event near Lethbridge, Alberta, was an opportunity for high school students to build tiny simulated satellites the size of a pop can, with an eye to developing an interest in space and a better understanding of the skills and requirements involved in satellites.

The Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) has funded 16 proposals with a total of $26 million in funding for the Collaborative Research and Training Experience (CREATE) program.

The Stardust Festival is returning once again this year but is now known as the Anangokaa Festival and the third edition of the festival will take place between September 30th and October 2nd in Timmins.

Space Concordia is a student rocketry club from Concordia University with the aim of doing something that no other students have accomplished: sending a student-built, liquid-fueled rocket past the 100 km “Kármán line” where space begins.

The Zenith Canada Pathways Foundation — a not-for-profit organization dedicated to promoting equity, diversity and inclusion in Canada’s space sector – has announced its third annual Class of Zenith Fellows.

Using simulated satellites floating on air above a granite slab, Carleton University’s Autonomous Spacecraft Robotics capstone team has shown that a combination of computer vision and artificial intelligence-enabled flight control makes autonomous satellite docking and maneuvering possible.

As Canada pushes for its first-ever human Moon mission and lunar rover in the coming few years, a new research unit in “lunar engineering” at Polytechnique Montréal aims to boost Canadian resources and infrastructure in that field.