OTTAWA – The age of the US government and other ‘western’ administrations leading the development of space technology is over, and the age of commercial players taking the lead has begun.
That was the key takeaway during the Space Bound 2022 conference session entitled, ‘From LEO To Lunar – The New Commercial Destinations.’ The conference was held October 18-19, 2022 by Space Canada at the Bayview Yards in Ottawa.
“One of the biggest shifts in strategy in the US is a recognition that, in a globally competitive environment, companies are becoming a flag carrier,” said Dr. Alexander MacDonald, NASA’s Chief Economist. His assessment was echoed by panelists from MDA, Telesat, and Canadensys Aerospace. They cited numerous examples of government turning to industry for space technology solutions, rather than relegating commercial companies to subcontractor status, as was the case in the 1960s.
A case in point: Although MDA is busy developing the Canadarm3 for NASA’s Gateway lunar orbital station, the company is also engaged in similar projects for private sector clients with “schedules (that) in some cases are actually almost more ambitious than the Gateway,” said Holly Johnson, MDA’s VP of Robotics and Space Operations. One of these projects is the Axiom Commercial Space Station. Although currently attached to the International Space Station as a module, “eventually it’ll kind of grow up and then separate and become its own entity,” she said. When this happens, the Axiom will need its own robotic arm to assist spaceships with docking and perform station maintenance. This is why MDA is selling Axiom robotic arm interfaces to make Canadarm2 and Canadarm3 compatible, said Johnson.
In another case of industry taking the lead in space technology development, MDA is partnering with Lockheed Martin Space and General Motors “to create electric Moon vehicles to offer mobility services on the Moon,” Johnson said. In this model, NASA and other governments can simply buy ‘moon mobility as a service,’ rather than having to shoulder the responsibility and risk of developing the tech themselves.
Canadensys Aerospace Corporation is also seeing increased commercial leadership in space – not just in product development, but product acquisition as well. For instance, Canadensys has developed cameras that are tough enough to survive the “cryogenic temperatures, very nasty environment and high radiation levels found on the Moon,” said Dr. Christian Sallaberger, the company’s President and CEO. Canadensys has subsequently found other customers for these cameras because “if you can survive on the Moon, you can pretty much survive anywhere else,” he quipped.
This being said, Canadian space companies are up against some heavy hitters in the growing commercial marketplace, said Stephen Hampton, Telesat’s Head of Public Policy. For instance, in the LEO satellite broadband sector that Telesat’s Lightspeed constellation is targeting, “there are really big players in this,” he said, such as Amazon and SpaceX, plus China and Russia. This is why Telesat and other Canadian companies still need the federal government as an anchor client on their commercial systems, to provide the capital and ongoing revenue to compete worldwide. This view was echoed in many sessions during the Space Bound conference.