July 2012 Archives

The Canadian Space Agency (CSA) has delivered Canada's two contributions to the next generation space telescope. NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) will use Canadian equipment to point the telescope and to detect atmospheres on Earth-like planets orbiting nearby stars.

A letter from Roland Kiehne, President of the CAW Local 112 (MacDonald Dettwiler and Associates Brampton) was sent and published by the Postmedia Network across their network of papers including the Ottawa Citizen questioning the decision to display the iconic Canadarm at the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) headquarters rather than a museum.

What are you doing late Sunday evening on August 5th? Well, for many people across Canada and the world they'll be attending Mars Landing parties. Why this particular Sunday night? Well for only the 4th time in history a rover will land on Mars.

CSA Astronaut Chris Hadfield and his colleague Tom Marshburn practice a complex spacewalking task in an International Space Station simulator at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. They will be a part of Expedition 34/35, a long-duration mission on board the ISS that launches in December 2012.

The Canadian Space Agency wants Canadians to provide input that it can then take back to the United Nations (UN) COPUOS Working Group on the LongTerm Sustainability of Outer Space Activities. That was the message Jean-Marc Chouinard outlined at a presentation to the Canadian Space Commerce Association in the first public meeting on this topic.

2012 marks Canada's 50th year in space. It was September 29th, 1962 that Canada became the third country in the world to develop its own satellite and see it launched. In the 50 years since Canada has become a major contributor in space. Several events will highlight this anniversary. The first to is an exhibit which just opened at Canada's Embassy in Washington.

A Russian Soyuz-FG vehicle launched early Sunday morning from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan with five satellites onboard including COM DEV's ExactView-1 as a secondary payload. Other satellites included the primary payloads of the Russian satellite KANOPUS-V1 (Canopus-B) and Belarusian BKA satellite and other secondary payloads MKA-PN1 from Russia and German TET-1.

Astrium has completed testing a new airborne satcom terminal for the Canadian National Defence (DND).

A year after the last Shuttle flight an iconic piece of Canadian hardware, the Canadarm from the orbiter Endeavour, has left the Kennedy Space Center and is on its way to the MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates Ltd. (MDA) Brampton facility to be "sanitized and refurbished". Once that is complete, the Canadarm will go on display at the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) headquarters in St. Hubert, Quebec just south of Montreal sometime in November. The question is, how many Canadians will see it?

The Canadian Space Agency (CSA) has been invited by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to test technologies and concepts for lunar exploration. The joint nine-day field test takes place starting this week in a volcanic area near Hilo, Hawaii. A Canadian built rover will test procedures which may ultimately prove that water can be obtained from lunar soil.

Canadian Space Agency (CSA) astronaut Chris Hadfield is currently the backup for NASA astronaut Sunita Williams who is scheduled to take off for the International Space Station on a Soyuz spacecraft at 10:40:03 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time on Saturday, July 14.

The Honourable Christian Paradis, Minister of Industry opened the Canadian Pavilion this week at the 2012 Farnborough Airshow in Farnborough, England. The same day, the Aerospace Industries Association of Canada (AIAC) released performance results for Canada's aerospace industry in 2011.

Magellan Aerospace's Winnipeg division, Bristol Aerospace Limited recently held a celebration to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the launch of its first Black Brant sounding rocket. Since the June 1962 launch, more than 1,000 Black Brant rockets have been sold worldwide.

The Canadian Space Agency (CSA) announced recently that it has transferred implementation of high speed interactive R&D broadband services in the far north to Telesat Canada.