The worldwide commercial space market heats up as Iridium Satellite Communications caps a two billion dollar turnaround with a $492 million USD launch contract to Elon Musk and his Space-X cowboys. Meanwhile, back in Canada our federal government finally ponies up another $26.4 million CDN to MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates (MDA) to continue work on phase “C” of the RADARSAT Constellation mission and COMDEV International …
Read More »Canadian Space Agency Reorganization Underway
The federal government on March 25th released the 2010-2011 Canadian Space Agency (CSA) Report on Plans and Priorities. The report indicates that in anticipation of Cabinet and Treasury Board approval of the Long Term Space Plan (LTSP), a reorganization is underway. The much anticipated 10 year LTSP would begin to be implemented this year as soon as the government approves the plan.
Read More »This Week in Space For Canada
This week in space for Canada is all about developing an inventory of the commercial space focused activities occurring last week and comparing them to what’s happening, or maybe not happening, at the Canadian Space Agency (CSA).
Read More »MDA Gets Next Contract in RADARSAT Constellation Mission
MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates Ltd. (MDA) announced yesterday that the Canadian Space Agency has authorized MDA to start the design phase (C) of the RADARSAT Constellation Mission. The value of this contract is limited to $11.8 million and is expected to be completed by June 11, 2010. The announcement comes two weeks after the federal government unveiled it’s budget which included funding for the RADARSAT …
Read More »Commercial Space – A Growing Industry in Canada
In the budget released by the government last week was $397 million of new funding for the RADARSAT Constellation Mission. In addition, the Canadian Space Agency had already allocated $100 million for the Constellation. The green light to this project is an important step in maintaining highly skilled jobs and keeping Canada a leader in the Earth Observation field which will benefit the growing Canadian …
Read More »This Week in Space for Canada
Last week in space for Canada was all about our federal government, it’s changing policies and newly allocated funding as outlined in both the Wednesday throne speech and the Thursday budget. This week for space in Canada is about whether these changes will help or hinder Canadian space focused activities.
Read More »Budget 2010 – The News is not all bad for the Canadian Space Agency
The Canadian Space Agency got the green light to go ahead with the RADARSAT Constellation Mission as reported earlier. The governments Economic Action Plan provided the Canadian Space Agency with $110 million over three years in last years budget. Of that, it was reported that $10 million had been committed while another $36 million will be committed this year. The $36 million for this year …
Read More »RADARSAT Constellation Mission get Funding in Budget
Today’s budget from the government provides the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) with $397 million of new money to help fund the RADARSAT Constellation Mission over 5 years. Along with $100 million that the CSA already has, the CSA will have a total of $497 million for the project. The bulk of the spending will happen after 2011-2012. This project which had already been in the …
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