News

April 20, 2012 – Toronto, Ontario – Space Quarterly magazine, a publication of the SpaceRef International Group, has been chosen as the magazine for the Canadian Space Society as a benefit to its members.

The European Space Agency (ESA) lost contact this week with one of their key earth observation satellites, Envisat, which over its lifespan has provided data to more than 4000 projects in 70 countries. Under a provision with the Canadian Space Agency as part of the Canada – European Space Agency Cooperation Agreement, Canada will provide data from the RADARSAT-1 satellite to fill in the gap …

It should not have come as a surprise, after all everyone had been warned for months that the budget would see cuts. The fact that the government is spinning the cuts as “savings” still doesn’t change the facts, this budget is a tough one for many and in particular the space sector.

The International Astronautical Federation (IAF) has announced that Toronto will host the 65th International Astronautical Congress in 2014. This is a coup for Canada and comes at a time when the space sector is at a significant crossroads.

Today’s budget offered $5.2 billion in cuts and we now know that 19,200 civil servants will be cut over the next three years with the government asserting that 6,000 of those will be through attrition.

Today is budget day and the government has been clear that this budget will be about cuts to many programs. What does it mean for the space sector?

On his latest stop in Japan as part of an Asian tour promoting all things Canadian, Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced several initiatives with the Japanese government that includes a new Canada-Japan Memorandum for Promotion of Space Cooperation.

For six weeks in Ontario, NASA scientists and engineers lead a field campaign to study the science and mechanics of falling snow. The datasets retrieved will be used to generate algorithms which translate what the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) Core satellite “sees” into precipitation rates, including that of falling snow. Ground validation science manager Walt Petersen gives a summary of the GCPEx field campaign. Field …

ESA’s third Automated Transfer Vehicle, Edoardo Amald, has been launched from Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, with a night-time liftoff at 05:34 CET (04:34 GMT). Edoardo Amaldi is the heaviest payload ever launched by an Ariane rocket. (Video:ESA)

Canada’s long awaited launch of the NEOSSat and Sapphire satellites will have to wait a little longer, slipping into a Q3 launch, with an anticipated earliest launch date of mid-July.