The Canadian Space Agency Gave Out Almost $30Mln CDN Last Quarter!

          By Chuck Black

The fourth quarter (typically from January 1st - March 31st) of government procurement has traditionally been the period when the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) gives out the lions share of its grants and contributions to academia and industry. 

The CSA proactive disclosure of grants and contributions awards webpage, which provides a pretty good overview of CSA grants and contributions of over $25K CDN to academia and industry. Federal government departments have been providing this sort of disclosure (with greater or lesser degrees of success) since 2005. Screenshot c/o CSA.

This year was no exception as the CSA first quarter totals (five, as listed on the 2015-16 CSA Disclosure of grants and contributions awards page), second quarter totals (two) and third quarter totals (two) were dwarfed by the 38 grants awarded in the fourth quarter of the 2015 - 2016 CSA budget.

The Q4 awards and grants included:

• Four grants to McGill University which include:

• The MICRO life detection platforms for Mars sample return protocols and planetary protection program ($35K CDN). 

• A program to allow Canadian researchers access to the NASA Mars Science Laboratory mission as participating scientists ($100K CDN) 

• A project called "Astrobiology Training in Lava Tubes (ATILT)" which will provide realistic science training in terrestrial lava tube caves considered high fidelity analogs of Mars lava tubes ($200K CDN). 

• The "Sounding Rocket Flight to Explore Percolating Reactive Waves" program, which will utilize a European sounding rocket (the MAXUS 9) to examine reactive waves propagating through suspension of particles ($194K CDN).

• Four grants to the University of Toronto which include: 

• A program of simulated micro-gravity to understand bone loss & develop countermeasures in space ($200K CDN) 

• The testing of the Canadian Atmospheric Laser Absorption Spectroscopy Experiment Test-bed (CALASET) on a stratospheric balloon in Timmins, Ontario ($500K CDN). 

• A grant to develop and fly the proposed Spider and SuperBIT telescopes ($500K CDN) 

• A grant to move forward with the Arctic Validation And Training for Atmospheric Research in Space (AVATARS) program ($500K CDN).

The Mars Science Laboratory. Several of the Q4 2016 CSA grants were made to fund continued access to the rover. Graphic c/o Space.com.

• Four grants to York University which include:

• Funding to allow Canadian access to the ongoing Mars Science Laboratory mission ($100K CDN). 

• The "CubeSat Electrodynamic Tether Deorbit Experiment (CETDE)," which would involve testing two cube-sats linked by a 400m bare tape electro-dynamic tether ($500K CDN). 

• The Aniu Experiment, intended to validate and calibrate two cameras for use in detecting frosts in permanently shadowed regions near the Lunar south pole ($200K CDN). 

• An on-orbit technology demonstration of sub-wavelength anti-reflection surface (SWAS) for cube-sat solar power production ($200K CDN). 

• Two grants to the University of Calgary which include:

• The funding of three balloon flights to test an energetic particle explorer (EPEx), which will measure the impact of high-energy particles raining down on Earth's atmosphere ($459K CDN). 

• A program to support the calibration, documentation and sharing of data derived from the CAScade, Smallsat and IOnospheric Polar Explorer (CASSIOPE), which the university operates in conjunction with MacDonald Dettwiler ($399K CDN).

• Two grants to the University of Ottawa which include:

• A study of muscle atrophy and the loss of muscle strength during spaceflight and bed rest ($286K CDN). 

• A study to gain an understanding of the process of rehabilitation after sixty days of bed-rest ($688K CDN).

• Two grants to the University of Western Ontario (more commonly known as Western University), which include:

• Funding for its Volcanic analogue mission for planetary exploration (VAMPE) proposal to use volcanic terrains on Earth as analogue sites for the testing of new techniques for the future human and robotic exploration of the solar system ($200K CDN). 

• A study on Mars Sample Return (MSR) sample analysis approaches ($35K CDN).

Several universities were awarded funding for single studies. These included: 

• Brock University, which received $100K CDN to act as a participating scientist on the NASA Mars Science Laboratory mission.

• Concordia University, which received  $198K CDN for "reduced gravity flights" to examine ExoMars rover wheel-soil interactions and the effects of gravity on planetary rover driving performance.

• Laval University, which received $500K CDN to test the High-Contrast Imaging Balloon System (HiCIBaS), a promising new type of low-order wave front sensor (LOWFS), using a stratospheric balloon.

Raman spectra are shown for the amino acids glutamine (G), alanine (A), proline (P), and cysteine (C)—important biomarkers that could indicate the presence of life beyond Earth. Graphic c/o University of South Carolina.

• McMaster University, which received $195K CDN for a detection and assessment of microbial bio-signatures in basalts by UV raman spectroscopy and direct analysis, a test to ascertain whether there is evidence of life on Mars by comparing Martian basalt's to lava flows in the Snake River Plain of Idaho and the Rift Zones in Hawaii, where life is known to exist.

• Simon Fraser University, which received $372K CDN to "examine the effects of 6 degree head-down bed-rest (HDBR) on the interaction between cardiovascular and postural systems as it relates to orthostatic blood pressure (BP) reflex control and cerebral perfusion."

• The University of Alberta, which received $200K CDN to fund the MAGnetometer Integrating Controlled Attitude with Low-noise Science (MAGICALS), an innovative integrated attitude actuation and scientific magnetic monitoring subsystem, for cube and nano-satellite applications.

• The University of Lethbridge, which received $500K CDN for a cryogenic far-infrared Fabry-Perot interferometer, to be pitched as a potential Canadian contribution to the SAFARI imaging spectrometer component of the proposed Space Infrared Telescope for Cosmology and Astrophysics (SPICA) satellite.

• The University of Saskatchewan, which received $500K CDN to fund the testing of a prototype development of the limb imaging FTS experiment (LIFE) on a stratospheric balloon.

• The University of Waterloo, which received $182K CDN to fund a project to demonstrate technologies for quantum communications space networks.

The NovaSAR synthetic aperture radar satellite (above) was a key reason why Vancouver, BC based Urthecast selected UK based Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd. (SSTL) to work on its proposed 16 satellite constellation, at least according to the June 19th, 2015 Space News article, "UrtheCast Plans Constellation of Optical And Radar Satellites." UrtheCast has received a $2Mln CDN CSA grant to work on a dual frequency, fully polarimetric, digitally beam formed, multichannel SAR receiver exciter, which would be the core element of UrtheCast's proposed constellation. Graphic c/o SSTL.

Several private corporations were also provided grants.

These included ABB Inc. Canada (two grants totaling just over $1Mln CDN), ARTsensing Inc. (one grant of $523K CDN), Honeywell International (listed under its pre-acquisition name of COM DEV Ltd., which received four grants totaling over $4Mln CDN), MPB Communications (one grant of $265K CDN), SED Systems (one grant of $855K CDN) and UrtheCast Corporation (one grant of $2Mln CDN).

Oddly enough, the largest single grant for Q4 was $10.5Mln CDN which covered the annual assessed contribution to the European Space Agency's (ESA) General Budget under the Canada/ESA Cooperation Agreement, for 2016.

Chuck Black.

Which makes sense, given our current government focus on making components for other people's space programs.
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Chuck Black is the editor of the Commercial Space blog.