Tag Archives: Global Affairs Canada

Issues raised several years ago were again the focus during a consultation with stakeholders by Global Affairs Canada (GAC) and the Canadian Space Agency.

With the mantra of a whole of government approach at work, a team effort by several government departments is underway to organize a space-data partnering mission to the United Kingdom (UK) next March.

It was years in the making, but on March 29 Global Affairs Canada issued Planet Labs a full operating license for their Inuvik based ground station.

One year after U.S. based Planet Labs Inc. threatened to pull its ground station assets out of Inuvik, and nearly three years after submitting a license request to operate in Canada’s high Arctic, the company has a Provisional License to operate its ground station.

The RADARSAT Constellation Mission (RCM) data policy is a work in progress and is not yet set. That’s one of the messages that Jill Smyth of the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) discussed at the CASI ASTRO 18 conference.

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. …

Planet took the opportunity while presenting at the Canadian SmallSat Symposium to deliver a very public ultimatum to Global Affairs Canada. Either there is measurable progress on licensing of their ground stations in Inuvik by June 1, or they will dismantle them and leave Canada. And they weren’t the only company to threaten this action.

The Canadian SmallSat Symposium held in Toronto, February 13-15, attracted national and international individuals, ranging from small start-ups, law firms, private commercial space corporates, to the government, all involved in the Canadian small satellite and space sector.

While innovation is seemingly in every funding press release issued by the government, there’s little innovation happening in Ottawa’s bureaucracy, and that’s hampering business to the point that foreign investment dollars in Canada’s space sector might head for more responsive countries. Throw in an apparent government conflict of interest, and you’ve got a Made in Ottawa bureaucratic migraine for the government.

The Institute of Air and Space Law at McGill University has completed a mandated independent review of the Remote Sensing Space Systems Act and in its findings they conclude that while the “Act was appropriate and useful at the time of its enactment in 2005, the players, activities, technology and internationalization of remote sensing activities have since changed significantly and outgrown the confines of the …