MDA Space Aurora

With the Theme LEO to Lunar, the 2019 Canadian Space Summit Hints at Immediate and Future Opportunities

The 19th Annual Canadian Space Summit, from LEO to Lunar. Credit: CSS.

This years Canadian Space Summit theme is LEO to Lunar and the program reflects this focus with sessions devoted to current and near term opportunities, as well as planning for longer term opportunities.

While the commercial segment is well represented at the summit, there’s also policy, education, science, and rocketry sessions that fill out a robust program.

Keynotes

The keynotes speakers this year come from SES, MDA, Airbus, DND and the Optical SatCom Consortium;

  1. Building the Cloud-Optimised Satellite Ecosystem – Sergy Mummert, Senior Vice President, Global Cloud Sales & Strategic Partnerships, SES Networks.
  2. LEO to Lunar: Airbus’ Contribution to 50 Years of Progress – Rob Postma, Vice President and Head of Governmental Export, Space Systems, Airbus.
  3. Chris Pogue, MDA President, Government Programs.
  4. Ryan Anderson, Optical SatCom Consortium – Becoming a Member and Developing a Technical Roadmap for Canada.
  5. Department of National Defence – LCol. Paul Maskell (Canadian Armed Forces)

Workshops

There are two workshops at the Summit this year.

The Optical SatCom Consortium workshop

The summit will be the public unveiling for the Optical SatCom Consortium and will include a keynote session to introduce the new organization.

Aside from the keynote session, the Consortium will hold a 2 day members only workshop.

According to conference materials “in 2018, the Government of Canada gave the mandate to the National Research Council of Canada (NRC) to bring together key contributors to create new technologies and a value chain to improve broadband connectivity in remote and rural communities in Canada. In response, NRC funded a research program entitled High Throughput Secure Networks for Rural and Remote Communities (HTSN) that would invest in research and development (R&D).”

The New Frontiers of Mining workshop

This is an interesting addition to the program and is a Natural Resources Canada led effort that is meant in part to position Canada as a leader in resource development in space.

It’s a smart move as it aims to leverage existing terrestrial skillsets with opportunities to develop new technology and skillsets needed on Earth and which would also be suitable to resource development in space.

The organizers of the workshop frame the event by stating that “the federal, provincial and territorial governments, industry and other stakeholders should support increased collaboration between Canada’s minerals and other industries to advance mutually beneficial technology development and adoption. Industry should continue to leverage space-based and other technologies to improve efficiency, and develop solutions for mining in deep, remote, and extreme environments. The federal government should develop a policy approach for mining new frontiers (extreme climates, deep mining, offshore, space) to foster investment and economic development.”

The workshop program in part includes the following sessions;

Business Case for Canada, Part I – New Frontiers, New Opportunities

  • What are the synergies between the New Frontiers?
  • What are the market opportunities?
  • What are the partnership opportunities?

Business Case for Canada, Part II – Challenges and Strategies

  • What are the challenges related to each of the New Frontiers?
  • What are the enabling conditions for the strategic dimensions?
  • What is Canada’s role and potential, domestically and internationally

Summit home

For the second year in a row the summit will be held at the Brookstreet Hotel in Kanata, a suburb of Ottawa. It’s an excellent venue with good facilities.

Registration is ongoing. SpaceQ is the media sponsor and will be in attendance.

About Marc Boucher

Boucher is an entrepreneur, writer, editor & publisher. He is the founder of SpaceQ Media Inc. and Executive Vice President, Content of SpaceNews. Boucher has 25+ years working in various roles in the space industry and a total of 30 years as a technology entrepreneur including creating Maple Square, Canada's first internet directory and search engine.

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