Meanwhile, Back at the Canadian Space Agency...

It's easy to forget that space related activities sometimes do occur even at our government funded space agency, especially given the dearth of obvious updates on the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) website. 

With that in mind, here is the second in a casual listing of some of the events and activities our space agency is helping to make happen:

Gordon Osinski.

• According to the September 27th, 2011 Space Daily article "NASA Partners Uncover New Hypothesis On Crater Debris," Canadian researchers led by Dr. Gordon Osinski at the University of Western Ontario (UWO) have developed "a new hypothesis for the origin of crater ejecta-debris that is launched out of a crater during meteorite impacts." According to the article, "these findings may help scientists target samples for extraction during future missions to asteroids and terrestrial bodies such as Mercury, Venus, the Moon and Mars." The research was supported by the Industrial Research Chair in Planetary Geology at UWO (a position held by Osinski) and funded by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), MacDonald Dettwiler (MDA) and the CSA.

The John H. Chapman Space Centre.

• The CSA Workshop on the Utilization of Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGA's) in Canadian Space Missions is being held at CSA headquarters in the John H. Chapman Space Centre in St-Hubert, Quebec from September 27th - 28th. Speakers for the two day event include Avrum Warshawsky from Hardent Electronic Design Services (which promoted involvement as per the September 22nd, 2011 PRWeb press release "Hardent to Deliver an FPGA Design Workshop at the Upcoming Canadian Space Agency FPGA Conference"), Walter Gude from Mentor Graphics, George Battiston, Luc Gagnon and Dave Hiemstra from MDA, James Veilleux from ABB Bomem and quite a number of others. Field-programmable gate arrays (FPGA) are integrated circuits designed to be configured by the customer or designer after manufacturing, according to Wikipedia.

CSA president Stave MacLean.

• CSA president Steve MacLean was in Deippe, New Brunswick last week providing details of what he foresees as being Canada's space future, according to the September 23rd, 2011 New Brunswick Business Journal article "Satellite technology holds big potential: Space agency head." MacLean, speaking at a French Chamber of Commerce in Canada luncheon marking their 125th anniversary, said that improvements in satellite technology hold the secrets to "opening up the Canadian north" in much the same way as the railroads opened up the south of Canada in the 19th century. The use of satellites and space technology to leverage infrastructure development has been an ongoing talking point for MacLean over the last year or so, going back at least as far as his March 2nd, 2011 "this Week in Space for Canada" interview on "Growth in Space Utilization to Benefit Canadians." 

Herschel Space Observatory.

• Given the above, it's worth noting that Canadian astronomers seem to be doing admirable work cataloging the heavens, even as the delays and cost overruns surrounding the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) seem to keep growing and growing (and try not to take too seriously the statement on the CSA JWST page, which reports the telescope as being "slated for launch in 2014." That just ain't gonna happen as reported in my July 12th, 2011 post "Tracking Costs for the James Webb Telescope"). Useful, ongoing CSA supported astronomy programs include the Herschel Space Observatory (a European Space Agency observatory launched in 2009 with Canadian contributions to the development of two of the three science instruments carried aboard) and the Planck Space Telescope (another ESA project, launched with the Herschell Space Observatory in 2009).

The very frugal Jaymie Matthews.

• Of course, there is also the all Canadian and very low cost Microvariability and Oscillations of Stars (MOST) satellite. Developed in partnership between the CSA, Dynacon Enterprises Limited, the Space Flight Laboratory (SFL) at the University of Toronto Institute for Aerospace Studies, and the University of British Columbia (UBC). The MOST program has been functioning almost continuously since 2003 under the capable leadership of UBC principal investigator Jamie Mathews but still manages to use very little Canadian taxpayer money.

SMOS satellite.

• Other useful CSA programs include the Project for On board Autonomy (PROBA-2) mission, the Soil Moisture Ocean Salinity (SMOS) satellite (both done in conjunction with the ESA) and the THEMIS program (in conjunction with the University of Calgary and NASA).

• Of course, any listing of CSA supported satellites also needs to include the Polar Communications and Weather (PCW) mission scheduled to put two satellites in a highly elliptical orbit over the North Pole for 24/7 communication services and weather monitoring in 2016, plus the iconic RADARSAT-1, RADARSAT-2 and upcoming RADARSAT Constellation series of three satellites scheduled for launch in 2014/ 2015, the Canadian SCISAT-1 satellite and quite a few others. 

A full listing of existing and upcoming CSA satellites is on the CSA satellite page. It's so comprehensive, that there are even listings for commercial telecommunications satellites operated by Telesat and no longer operational CSA satellites.

As mentioned once before, in my August 8th, 2011 post on the same topic, there are lots of other fun and fascinating things going on at our space agency and we should be encouraging the CSA to talk more about them.