Renée Hložek is in a pretty good place to observe Canada’s place and possible future in space. A renowned cosmologist and frequent media commentator on all things related to astronomy, she was born and educated in South Africa, she studied as a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford and is a TedX Fellow.
Canada in 2018 spent the least amount on its space program in the G8, which also includes the United States, Japan and the United Kingdom. Possibly the most famous Canadian aerospace achievement was the Canadarm, the robotic space arm proudly featured on the $5 bill and first tested in orbit in 1981. The company that made the Canadarm, MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates Ltd. , was sold to an American company in 2017.
Hadfield was the first Canadian to perform a space walk, the only Canadian to enter the Russian space station, Mir, and the first Canadian to command the International Space Station. And just before Hadfield blasted into space aboard the Atlantis Space Shuttle in 1995, Canada launched its first Earth observation satellite, Radarsat-1.
Of course, Canada’s most famous space effort is its robotic contribution to the NASA-led Space Shuttle program, Canadarm, which served as the spacecraft’s mechanical arm for 30 years. Its younger brother, Canadarm2, helped build the International Space Station. “The Canadian space community will maintain global leadership in robotics, and capitalize on our world-leading expertise in AI, and health,” said Navdeep Bains, Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development, echoing Trudeau’s sentiments.“We are funded for 24 years. We’re very fortunate we’re getting such outstanding support,” he said. “To be successful in space you need that long-term perspective.
During 2019-2020, the CSA expects to spend about $345 million, which is less than 0.1 per cent of the federal government’s total budget of $355.6 billion. By comparison, NASA received US$21.5 billion out of the US$4.7 trillion federal budget in 2019. If funded at NASA’s level of support, CSA would receive approximately $1.7 billion each year.
“Canada’s space strategy will foster our next generation of astronauts, engineers and scientists and will ensure Canadians and Canadian businesses benefit from the growing opportunities in the space economy,” the report said.Canada, it also turns out, is a good place to be an aerospace company, especially a startup.
Mitry said Canada is a great place for his company to be headquartered: it has access to a terrific “knowledge base” due to the proximity of local university talent and the Canadian government has invested in research and development and supported trade missions for the young company. More specifically, the CSA helped Kepler secure permission to launch its satellites and navigate regulatory frameworks.
“The U.S. is a great analogy, where there is a really well-known procurement mechanism to help early-stage businesses sell into government,” he said. Ajay Agrawal, an entrepreneur and professor at Rotman, founded the non-profit CDL in 2012 to solve a problem in commercializing deep science and technology companies.
Hadfield is enthusiastic about the possibilities of CDL, calling it a place “where future ideas are made.”
that map of Canada is inaccurate