The Canadian Space Agency (CSA) has selected five proposals in the next stage of its smartEarth program awarding each company $780k.
The CSA said that the proposals selected focus “on advancing projects that monitor the Arctic, improve wildfire response, and protect marine life and sensitive coastal ecosystems.”
The proposals include:
- C-CORE (Newfoundland and Labrador) – Mitigating Arctic challenges through the use of multi-mission satellite data and artificial intelligence
- Mission Control (Ontario) – Demonstrating a machine learning application for use onboard satellites to deliver wildfire detection products for wildfire managers in near real time.
- Hatfield Consultants LLP (British Columbia) – Developing an eelgrass mapping system to support aquatic biodiversity.
- AltaML (Alberta) – Leveraging generative artificial intelligence to improve systems that detect and protect North Atlantic right whales.
- Fluvial Systems Research (British Columbia) – Detecting and monitoring North Atlantic right whales through satellite data to inform and strengthen protection measures.
The CSA also said that “since the launch of the smartEarth initiative, the Canadian Space Agency has awarded over $30 million to more than 85 research and development projects. Over 500 highly qualified employees from nearly 100 organizations across industry, academia, and the public sector have collaborated on these projects.”
In a separate news release, Mission Control elaborated on their proposal saying, “At the core of the initiative is FireBAN (Fire Band Analysis Network), a machine learning algorithm that will be trained on new wildfire datasets gathered from both drones and satellites. Once trained, FireBAN will be deployed onboard Persistence, Mission Control’s AI-powered satellite operating in low Earth orbit. The satellite will process data in orbit to detect wildfires in real time and transmit the results directly to wildfire managers—and, critically, to at-risk communities through our partnership with Eagle Flight Network. This collaboration ensures that timely, actionable data is delivered not only to operational leaders but also to those most vulnerable to wildfire impacts.”