Policy

Initials details on Canada’s new National Space Council were quietly released last week on the Canadian Space Agency website. The new multi-level governance structure is going to be big.

SpaceQ has learned that Canadian government and the United States are getting close to concluding negotiations for a Technology Safeguards Agreement between the two countries and that negotiations have been proceeding well. An agreement would benefit companies like Maritime Launch Services, allowing American launch providers and payloads to use facilities like Spaceport Nova Scotia.

Heeding the repeated calls from industry group Space Canada, the federal government has announced that it will create a National Space Council. This and other space related items were in the 2024 budget released yesterday by the Liberal government.

At the 39th Space Symposium in Colorado Springs, the Canadian Space Agency announced it has signed updated Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the UK Space Agency and the Australian Space Agency. They also said they had engaged in bilateral talks with JAXA, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency.

As the government continues to roll-out federal budget promises, Prime Minister Trudeau and Defence Minister Bill Blair yesterday announced a defence policy update called Our North, Strong and Free which included two items specifically for space capabilities.

The federal government has made a new commitment to open science over the past few months. In January they opened a new Federal Open Science Repository for Government agencies to publish scientific research and data for public access.

Space Canada’s second annual conference, Spacebound 2023, was held in Ottawa between October 17-19 and SpaceQ was present to cover the key news stories.

Canadian industry is once again asking for a fresh and new Canadian space policy – along with a national space council – in the latest consultation process by the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) and the Government of Canada.

The Canadian Space Agency (CSA) has released its first Departmental Sustainable Development Strategy and it covers the period of 2023 through 2027.

The United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research recently held a conference concerning space matters, including one on building “common understandings between stakeholders” when it comes to space security. A large theme of the panel was how much power commercial companies have these days, and the regulations that do (and do not) exist to manage their power.