News

Recently at the Canadian SmallSat Symposium both Planet and KSAT threatened to pull ground station assets out of Canada by June 1 if progress hadn’t been made in approving their licenses. Then news came from New North Networks, the company which manages the ground station infrastructure in Inuvik, that they had heard from Global Affairs Canada and that an approval of sorts had been received. …

Science Fiction author Robert J. Sawyer has often been called the “Dean of Canadian Science Fiction”. On Tuesday, he received a new title: Member of the Order of Ontario.

At the recent Canadian SmallSat Symposium Dr. Michael K. Simpson was the opening keynote speaker. As Executive Director of the Secure World Foundation Michael works toward the foundations vision of “the secure, sustainable and peaceful uses of outer space contributing to global stability and benefits on Earth.”

The Canadian Space Agency (CSA) has awarded a $1.534 million to COM DEV (Honeywell Canada) for a Focal Plane Array for Coastal & Inland Water Color Hyperspectral Imager as part of the Space Technology Development Program.

Surprising most people, the government unveiled $21.5 billion in new spending, more than anticipated for Budget 2018. This includes and significantly, $3.2 billion for science funding and a total of $6.4 billion for what the chapter in the budget calls Progress.

At 15-kilograms, Claire, the size of a microwave oven, zips around the planet at 7-kilometres a second. When flying above the Alberta oil sands, her sensors zero in on a tailing pond and record carbon dioxide and methane emissions. Claire is a demonstration microsatellite operated by GHGSat, the first commercial company to offer greenhouse gas monitoring services using satellite technology.

Tomorrow Finance Minister Bill Morneau will deliver the Liberal Party’s third budget since coming to power in October 2015. The space community awaits anxiously to see if this is the year a Canadian government steps up and supports the space program to a greater extent than it has.

By: Michelle Hanlon, co-founder, For All Moonkind, Inc. “Made on Earth by humans,” proudly proclaims the circuit board of the “midnight cherry” Tesla Roadster launched into space on SpaceX’s game-changing Falcon Heavy. In the glove box are, among other things, a copy of Douglas Adams’ iconic Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, a towel (of course) and a tiny quartz storage disc, prepared by the Arch …

This past week Bigelow Aerospace announced it had created a new company called Bigelow Space Operations that manages and operates space stations developed by Bigelow Aerospace and that they had partnered with CASIS which manages the U.S. National Laboratory on the International Space Station. With Bigelow stepping up operations, we thought it useful to present this interview by Eva-Jane Lark with founder Robert Bigelow which appeared in Space Quarterly Magazine in …

In the first annual Women in Planetary Science and Exploration conference, women and non-binary researchers presented their work that ranged from understanding the oceans of Titan to how to land a Mars Rover. Uniquely however, the conventional research presentations were interspersed with panels discussing visible minorities, the LGBTQ community, and harassment in STEM, as well as professional topics such as public outreach and career options …