Innovation Minister's Latest Announcement a Rehash of November 2015 Announcement

          By Henry Stewart

The Wednesday announcement by innovation minister Navdeep Bains, that the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) had allocated $1.7Mln CDN to Kanata, Ontario based Neptec Design Group for the creation of a new damage detection system for close-up surface inspection on the outside of the International Space Station (ISS), was nice.

But it wasn't the first time the program had been announced. In November 2015, the CSA also announced $1.9Mln CDN funding for the same program and to the same company, but called it "phase A" funding for the design concept, after which a competitive bidding process would be initiated to decide upon the final contractor.

Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen with innovation minister Bains at the John H. Chapman Space Centre in Longueuil, PQ, on January 7th, 2016. As outlined in the January 7th, 2016 government of Canada press release, "The Government of Canada announces a new vision system to support the inspection and maintenance of the International Space Station,"  the minister was in town with parliamentary secretary Greg Fergus and Sherry Romanado, the Liberal member of parliament for the riding of Longueuil-Charles-LeMoyne, to announce the awarding of a contract to Neptec for the design of a "new advanced space vision system" which will be mounted on the Canadian built Special Purpose Dexterous Manipulator (SPDM) or DEXTRE, which is already installed on-board the ISS. The new unit will include a 3D laser, a high-definition camera and an infrared camera, and will be tasked with supporting "the inspection and maintenance of the ageing infrastructure" of the ISS. Photo c/o @csa_asc.

As outlined in the March 31st, 2015 post on the Buy and Sell website under the title, "Dextre Deployable Vision System (DDVS) (9F052-141026)," the original RFI was offered up for tender by the federal government well before the current Liberal government came to power in October 2015.

The final contract, as outlined in the November 25th, 2015 Buy and Sell post, "Dextre Deployable Vision System (DDVS) – Phase A (9F052-150058/001/MTD)," was announced as being awarded to Neptec on November 25th, 2015. The story was then picked up by several news services including the November 25th 2015 Spaceref.ca article, "Neptec Awarded Phase A Contract for Space Station Dextre Deployable Vision System," and the  November 25th, 2015 More Commercial Space News post, "Neptec Awarded Phase A Contract for Space Station Dextre Deployable Vision System."

The differences in cost between the November 2015 announcement and last weeks announcement from the innovation minister relate almost entirely to the inclusion of the applicable sales tax on the total amount allocated by the federal government to the program.

Slide 14 of the October 2014 presentation on the DEXTRE Deployable Vision Sensor, which is available on the NASA website.  Graphic c/o NASA.

And, as outlined in the October 2014 presentation on the DEXTRE Deployable Vision Sensor, the idea of adding extra sensing capabilities to the Canadian built DEXTRE had been floating around NASA and CSA since at least 2010, and perhaps even before then. As outlined in the presentation, the intent of the program (at least from the CSA perspective) was to add a series of "high mature technologies" to the surface inspection capabilities on board the ISS.

Neptec has been a NASA prime contractor since the 1990's, supplying operational systems to both the Space Shuttle and ISS programs. Starting in 2000, Neptec began expanding its technology to include active 3D imaging systems and 3D processing software.

So while it's good that Minister Bains is promoting CSA activities and holding press conferences about new CSA contract awards, the suggestion that there is anything especially new or innovative about this particular announcement is at best naive.

Here's hoping he'll do better next time. Maybe he'll even follow through with a competitive bidding process, instead of just announcing the winner.

Editors Note: According to Julie Simard, the CSA's acting manager for strategic communications, the initial November 25th, 2015 announcement that Neptec was awarded the contract was not intended to be an announcement, but was intended instead to be a "routine administrative procedure" performed to come into compliance with the "Government of Canada’s policy on the mandatory publication of contracts over $10,000." 

According to Simard, the real difference between a public announcement and an administrative procedure is that "a public announcement would involve press activities such as the publication of a press release or the organization of a press event (by the CSA or some other government organization), like the one that was held on January 7." 

Be that as it may, we're going to stand by our statement that the Neptec announcement (defined as simply "a written or spoken statement that tells people about something"  in the Merriam Webster dictionary), initially occurred in November 2015.

Simard also indicated that the original RFI offered up for tender by the federal government in March 2015 and expired in April, was superseded on July 7th, 2015 by a request for proposal (RFP) under the title "Système de vision déployable par Dextre (SVDD) / Dextre Deployable Vision System (DDVS)," under which the final contract to Neptec was to be awarded. 

The provided document explicitly confirmed that the current RFP is for phase A work only. Phase A work typically covers the feasibility assessment of a project under consideration and doesn't usually include any work on the project itself (that comes later in phases B, C and D). 

Simard spoke with Commercial Space blog editor Chuck Black on January 13th, 2016 and followed up the conversation with the e-mail posted in the comments section below. 

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Henry Stewart is the pseudonym for a Toronto based aerospace writer.