January 2010 Archives

Pierre Trudeau, addressing the Washington, D.C., Press Club in 1969 said "Living next to you [the U.S.] is in some ways like sleeping with an elephant. No matter how friendly and even-tempered is the beast, one is affected by every twitch and grunt" and he was absolutely correct. In 1969.

That's why this week in space for Canada is all about watching the Americans figure out what they're going to do with their broken, bleeding and bankrupt national space program.

The Royal Astronomical Society of Canada issued the following information for its members. Over the last decade the striking ethereal glow of Green Laser Pointers (GLPs) has become a familiar sight at astronomy education and public outreach (EPO) events, from star parties for beginners to sky-at-night tours around astronomical installations. With the beam of a GLP an astronomy educator can direct an audience unerringly to a specific object -- planet, meteor shower radiant, star, asterism, constellation, or nebula.

Sea ice fills the mouth of the St. Lawrence River in this image, captured by the MODIS on the Aqua satellite on January 17, 2010. The St. Lawrence River carries water from the Great Lakes out into the Gulf of St. Lawrence and then into the Atlantic Ocean.

This week in space for Canada is quiet but important and all about the boring programs available to help Canadian business making a living off our final frontier.

The Canadian Space Agency has released the following RADARSAT-2 image showing specific locations in and around the capital city Port-au-Prince. The epicenter of the quake was just 15 kilometers from the capital and only 10 kilometers deep.

The lower slopes of Hawaii's Mauna Kea with its volcanic soil and which resembles the surfaces of the moon and Mars will be the location for upcoming field tests of a variety of technology with representation from NASA, the German and Canadian Space Agency and Canadian organizations.

January 27, 2010: 11:00 PM - 12:00 AM Eastern Time

Upcoming missions to the Moon and Mars are triggering an extensive range of new design techniques and tools to deal with the emerging complexity of the required systems. This webinar presents an overview of modeling and simulation of space systems using physical modeling techniques derived from symbolic model formulation techniques.

Astronomer David Dodge who worked for 35 years with the H.R. MacMillan Space Centre will be speaking at the University of British Columbia this Thursday evening. His educational presentation is titled: The World At Night: One People, One Sky.

This week in space for Canada is all about taking stock of the upcoming space, aerospace, venture capital and business focused events occurring over the next couple of months. Think of it a basic list of fun places to go, interesting people to meet and useful organizations to connect with. Some of these events are even in Canada.

The Canadian Space Commerce Association (CSCA) is currently working on plans for our 2010 Annual General Meeting (AGM) which is is now scheduled for March 16.

Building academic capacity in the Science and Technology space sector is a priority of the Canadian Space Agency (CSA), in particular through promoting the use of accessible and cost effective suborbital platforms and nanosatellites that can accommodate research and graduate student training. In this context the CSA is pleased to announce that it will host a Workshop on Suborbital Platforms and Nanosatellites on April 14,15, and 16, 2010, at the John H. Chapman Space Centre in St-Hubert, Quebec (beginning at 13:00 on April 14 and ending at noon on April 16).

Hydrogenics of Mississauga has been picked by the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) to provide a next generation lunar mobility power system. Lunar mobility systems is one of the key technology areas the CSA has targeted going forward. Mobility systems would be one area of expertise the CSA would provide to international partners in future moon exploration and is part of the next long term space place the CSA has yet to release.

University of British Columbia (UBC) astronomers led by UBC post-doctoral fellow Gaelen Marsden have released the most detailed images of deep space from 12 billion years ago using data from the European Space Agency's (ESA) Herschel Space Observatory. The results were recently presented at the first International Herschel Science Meeting in Madrid, Spain.

In December 2008 members of the Canadian space community gathered in Montreal for the 6th Canadian Space Exploration Workshop (CSEW6) sponsored and hosted by the Canadian Space Agency. The report, dated May 30, 2009, was released to the public today.

The Astronomy & Space Exploration Society (ASX) at the University of Toronto invites you to this exciting event!