Marc Boucher: February 2012 Archives

The government announced today that Canada intends to renew its commitment to the International Space Station(ISS) beyond 2015. Minister of Industry Christian Paradis made the announcement in Quebec City where the ISS Heads of Agency meeting is currently taking place. The news was expected but it took some time for Canada to commit, making it the last of the other participating nations to do so.

According to Treasury Board of Canada Main Estimates for 2012-13 released yesterday the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) is estimated to see its budget reduced from $424.6 million from 2011-12 to $363.2 million representing a 16.9% decrease in its budget. The CSA budget was already scheduled to be reduced to $371.1 million, a decrease of 14.4% according to the CSA Report on Plans and Priorities 2011-12 estimates released last year.

Commercial Satellites

So, now another metric on this that we are doing well, in that we are a country that drives innovation with our programmatic spending, is the fact that on four out of five commercial satellites in the world, there are Canadian components. And that is probably one of the best metrics that we can give about our success and about how we are driving innovation.

The International Space Station

Now speaking of importance, let's look at ISS, the International Space Station. You know this is - perhaps the most important aspect of the ISS is the fact that 18 countries can work together on something that is so amazing. It's the most complex international project that has ever been conceived of and executed and it involved Canada, Russia, US and Japan and several countries from the European Space Agency.

So suddenly and perhaps unexpectedly Canada became a space-faring nation. Yet we are very different from the two rivals that were involved in space. We lacked the resources. We lacked the population and of course we lacked that air experience or at least it appeared we lacked the experience. And to a large extent the Soviet Union and the United States went to space because they could. But in our case, we went to space because we had to. And the reason for that is simple. Canada is the second-largest country in the world. We have the largest continuous coastline in the world. We are a country that's bounded by coast to coast to coast. It was very important to get vehicles into orbit so that we could monitor our vast territory. And in 1962 Canada was largely undeveloped. I mean it's still in a way true today. Places were hard to reach. It's sparsely populated. You know above 70 degrees we only have 5,000 people. And our climate is as challenging then - was as challenging then as it is today. So it's impossible to observe our territory and communicate effectively at ground level. We had to go into space and this puts our safety and security at risk. It makes it difficult to predict the weather or to monitor the movement of ships in our icy waters, those kinds of things that we can do today.

At the recent American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) meeting held in Vancouver, Canadian Space Agency (CSA) President Steve MacLean gave a talk titled International S&T (Science and Technology) Collaboration. MacLean did a good job of recounting Canada's entry into space and the many accomplishments Canada has. He also made a few pointed remarks. In this multi-part article we publish the transcript of MacLean's speech for everyone to read. But first a little background.

The federal government announced today more details regarding the earlier announced review of aerospace policy and programs. Significant among them for the space sector is a change in name of the review itself. The review is now called the Review of Aerospace and Space Programs and Policies instead of the previous Review of Aerospace Policy and Programs.

Starting today Quebec City is hosting approximately 80 delegates for the International Space Agency Heads of Agency meeting. Attending will be representatives from NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA), the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and the Russian Federal Space Agency (ROSCOSMOS) along with the hosts the Canadian Space Agency.

The Canadian Space Commerce Association will be holding its annual meeting on March 28th in Ottawa with Our Critical Canadian Space Infrastructure as its theme. The annual event brings together the various participants of the space systems sector to discuss the current state of affairs.

The following excerpt is a free preview from the March issue of Space Quarterly magazine. This article is only available in the Canadian edition of the magazine.

The following excerpt is a free preview from the March issue of Space Quarterly magazine. This article is only available in the Canadian edition of the magazine.

The latest edition of Space Quarterly magazine will be available March 1. This issue is our biggest effort to date with 17 articles covering a wide range of topics including a focus on military space.

Get a first look at the Canadian Space Agency's learning resource being developed for Expedition 34/35. Discover how a 3-D avatar of astronaut Chris Hadfield will teach students about biological life support in a zero-g environment and how attitude control systems are essential for the International Space Station. Coming in Fall 2012. Courtesy the Canadian Space Agency.

Astronauts on the International Space Station recently filmed what is among the most spectacular night imagery ever taken from space of the United States and Canada. The video, comprised of hundreds of sequential still images is now available.

This photo showing the Manicouagan Reservoir in Quebec, Canada, was photographed by one of the Expedition 30 crew members aboard the International Space Station.

Follow Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield in this short video as he explains Soyuz training in Star City, Russia, during a simulator run with his crewmates, NASA astronaut Tom Marshburn and Russian Space Agency cosmonaut Roman Romanenko.

NASA Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) Deputy Project Scientist Gail Skofronick-Jackson tells us about the science of falling snow and what the GPM mission will do to study this critical component of the Earth's water cycle.