Tag Archives: MDA

Before the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft in orbit around asteroid Bennu can take a sample from the surface it needs to be mapped. That’s where Canada’s OSIRIS-REx Laser Altimeter (OLA) comes in.

Today Prime Minister Justin Trudeau confirmed what many had hoped for by committing Canada to participate in the NASA led effort to return to the moon.

MDA has been in business for 50 years now, which is no small achievement, and it’s not easy to keep a company growing for a long period of time.

Maxar announced today that it had made the decision to terminate its contract with the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) for the Robotic Servicing of Geosynchronous Satellites (RSGS) program.

The Canadian Space Agency issued a request for information (RFI) today for its Deep Space Exploration Robotics (DSXR) initiative.

Last week the Department of Defence (DND) announced 160 contracts valued at $26.8M for 16 science and technology challenge areas which included 20+ contracts for space organizations.

With investor confidence waning, Maxar CEO Howard Lance has resigned and has been replaced by Daniel Jablonsky effective immediately.

Canada’s only operational radar satellite, RADARSAT-2, has lost the use of its gyroscope and will now rely on the spacecraft’s three other types of sensors for attitude reference. And in just released news, Maxar announced today that the WorldView-4 satellite control moment gyros have failed and they don’t expect the spacecraft to recover.

It seems NASA and other nations are focused on the exploration of the moon by robotics and eventually humans again. Canada, should the government choose to participate, can have a critical role.

It would seem getting the RADARSAT Constellation Mission (RCM) launched is an exercise in patience as the hoped for mid-February launch is “likely” delayed again.