CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida — After a monumental year in Canadian astronaut missions, the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) and Ministry of Industry are working on the next priorities for government astronauts as well as industry.
The CSA launched its second astronaut of the year on Thursday, Oct. 1 at Florida’s Cape Canaveral Space Force Station when Josh Kutryk flew to the International Space Station aboard Crew-13, six months to the day after fellow astronaut Jeremy Hansen embarked to the moon aboard Artemis II, at the adjacent Kennedy Space Center (KSC).
CSA astronaut missions are rare; the last agency ISS mission before 2026 was in 2018-19, when David Saint-Jacques spent 204 days in space. When SpaceQ asked at a post-launch press conference Oct. 1 at KSC about the continuity between Saint-Jacques’ and Kutryk’s missions, the agency emphasized two things.
The first is that Saint-Jacques (who is also a father) served as astronaut escort during launch to Kutryk’s family, which includes Kutryk’s wife, two young children and a third child who will be born during Kutryk’s mission. The escort essentially makes sure that an experienced hand is ready to help a launching astronaut’s family have anything they need, in terms of agency resources or travel assistance.
“He’s making sure that Josh’s family is well-supported during those exciting times, but also challenging times,” Mathieu Caron, CSA’s director of astronauts and life sciences, said in the briefing at KSC.
The second point of continuity is experiments and processes; some of Saint-Jacques’ research is continuing with Kutryk’s mission, while operational procedures at CSA have been refined in the intervening eight years. “In terms of honing our processes, we made sure that after David came back to the Canadian Space Agency, we polled him for things that we could improve our focus, or really get his expertise, and make sure that our next steps reflected are in sight,” Caron said.
After a rush of missions in 2026, there will be some gap (how long is not clear) until a CSA astronaut flies again. Keeping the momentum going is a priority in the Canadian industry, and to be sure, there are many projects that are going on outside of human spaceflight—nuclear materials, sovereign launch, and satellites (including SpaceX’s Transporter-18 that also coincidentally flew on Oct. 1, with Canadian payloads on board) being among just a handful of Canadian industries in which space companies are involved.
But Minister of Industry Mélanie Joly, whose portfolio includes the CSA, made it clear to reporters in a post-launch scrum at KSC on Oct. 1 that the government is heeding the long-standing calls to develop a new Canadian space strategy to replace the one created in 2019. While there is a new Defence Industrial Strategy targeted for the military that includes space projects, and the Canadian government has supported sovereign launch and Arctic contracts with defence implications, a broader strategy is crucial to allow companies to set projects and priorities in line with expected government funding, which serves as an anchor client to help recruit other clients.
“I think for too long we didn’t have astronauts going to space, and so I think space exploration is important for our country. Also, we benefit from the different research done really, for industry for creating jobs, but also to protect our sovereignty,” Joly said.
“I think that we can do things differently, faster, and in a more ambitious way,” she continued. “We’re working on a new space strategy. The three aspects of this space strategy we have in mind is definitely science—so everything linked to civilian research; second is the industrial component, so really being able to create jobs; and finally, the defence front to make sure that we can benefit from all the research that is being done to protect ourselves and protect our people.”
Joly also had an in-person meeting with NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman prior to the Crew-13 launch, in which they discussed “the administrator’s view of wanting to go faster,” according to Joly. “I’m a very ambitious minister that wants to bring more Canadians to space, and we also talked about the fact that we believe that we can develop the capacity in Canada to provide space-launch operations, so that also will be good for Canada and our industry partners.”
When a reporter asked if Canada-U.S. trade relations were brought up with NASA, Joly said her message was emphasizing that “when it comes to space, I think this is a place where we can collaborate and cooperate. And that’s what we’ve done.” Joly also met with industry group Space Florida, which she said was “to see what was done here.” (While the minister did not say this, perhaps the meeting may also open the door for future local partnerships with industry.)
SpaceQ asked Joly in the scrum what her CSA-related plans are upon returning to work in Canada, and she answered that she will be working on the space strategy, appointing a new and permanent CSA president, and “sending another astronaut” to space.
In human spaceflight, there are no booked CSA missions — for now — and Canadians could always fly by other pathways, such as in private industry. But there are a few dynamics on CSA’s side to watch.
- CSA astronaut Jenni Gibbons (the only unflown member of the corps) served as backup for Artemis 2 as well as its lunar capcom, and is now lead capcom for Artemis 3 flying NET 2027. All of this training appears to put her in line for a future Artemis mission, should a slot be available in that program. CSA would like to have Gibbons assigned first before considering adding new astronauts to the corps, Caron noted in the post-launch press conference; Saint-Jacques and Kutryk are the other remaining active astronauts after Hansen retired earlier this year, and the last astronaut selection was in 2017.
- CSA was supposed to get at least two Artemis astronaut slots, based upon CSA’s contribution of Canadarm3 to the Gateway space station at the moon. Hansen, of course, is the first slot. But shortly before his launch, Gateway was paused, after NASA shifted in March to a Moon Base. Canadarm3 is still an active contract between CSA and MDA Space, and negotiations are ongoing between all Gateway partners about what contributions would look like on Moon Base — and astronaut flight slots associated with those contributions.
- CSA might be able to get in one more mission to the ISS before its retirement in 2030. This is assuming a few things, one being sheer program availability if the ISS indeed stops accepting astronauts that year; CSA pointed out in August that discussions with NASA have not progressed as far as 2030, given that is several years away. On top of that, a 2030 mission assumes a nominal once-every-six-year launching pace based on CSA’s 2.3% contribution to the ISS partnership with robotics. (The math looks like this: After Chris Hadfield in 2012-13 and Saint-Jacques in 2018-19, Kutryk’s Boeing Starliner-1 assignment was for 2024—although Kutryk actually launched two years later due to Starliner delays.)
- CSA signed an MoU with Axiom Space in 2022 “including the potential for Canadian astronauts to fly on future Axiom-sponsored missions.”