Our Editor Went to the Annual University of Waterloo Capstone Design Competition and Got a T-Shirt

          By Chuck Black

It's spring at Canadian colleges and universities, when faculties show off their best and brightest with the intent to recruit next year's freshmen class. And one of the more memorable of these events is the annual University of Waterloo (UoW) Faculty of Engineering Capstone Design Competition.

The main floor of the William G. Davis Computer Research Centre on March 18th, 2016 showing various presentations from fourth year mechatronics engineering students participating in the annual UoW Capstone Design competition. Displays varied throughout the event, with software engineering, nanotechnology engineering and management engineering student displays being the focus of the March 16th, 2016 presentations and the mechatronics students taking over on March 18th. The event will continue through March 21st and 22nd with displays from the mechanical, chemical, systems design and civil, environmental & geological engineering students before finishing up with electrical & computer engineering student displays on March 24th. Photo c/o author.

Capstone isn't just an academic event. The UoW engineering faculty lists over 600 companies in Canada and abroad which were founded by Waterloo graduates.

Many, including firms such as the Pebble SmartWatch (a wearable computer which managed to raise $10Mln CDN via kickstarter in 2012), the Myo armband (developed by Thalmic Labs, which lists an impressive grouping of venture companies, including Spark Capital, Intel Capital, Formation 8, First Round Capital and FundersClub, as investors and supporters), Athos Live Wear (most recently noted in the February 9th, 2015 Fast Company article on, "The World's Top 10 Most Innovative Companies Of 2015 In Fitness") and Suncayr (a "smart" UV indicator to let you know when your sunscreen is "no longer protecting you"), have developed directly from fourth year student projects developed for Capstone.

The key to these successful start-ups is Waterloo's intellectual property (IP) rights policy #73, which grants ownership of inventions developed at Waterloo "in the course of teaching and research activities" to the inventor (or inventors) except in cases where "assigned tasks" are performed or in situations where "sponsored or contract research activities" are funded by outside organizations.

This policy is perceived by Waterloo executives as being a key feature in attracting entrepreneurial oriented faculty and graduate students who want to engage in commercial activities which transfer ideas and technology to the private sector.

Eleven: Eleven co-founder and forth year student Leia Shum at the UoW Capstone Design competition on March 18th. According to the Eleven: Eleven sales literature, "one in fifty Americans is affected by some form of physical paralysis. To improve patients’ quality of life, eleven:eleven is developing Periphero —a non-invasive, wearable device that reinstates real-time motor control of the upper limb. Current solutions use external mechanical methods of actuation, whereas Periphero uses electrical stimulation of pre-existing muscles to elicit desired movements with positional feedback. Periphero is a stepping stone into a greater system of controlling the upper limbs outside of the peripheral nervous system." Team members include Shum, Genevieve Serafin, Li-Yen Yang,  Farzad Niroui and Jakub Dworakowski. Photo c/o author.

As outlined by UoW engineering professor Sanjeev Bedi, the real key to a successful student project is the ability to "define the need" for any specific solution, before actually going out to build anything.

According to Bedi:

Professor Bedi at work. Photo c/o author.  

This is a high impact educational activity defined around needs. 

What we do is allow the students to spend a significant amount of time on a specific problem and interact with others, end-users, professors and students, in order to define real needs and build a polished and commercial product. 

The intent of the program is to prepare students to work in teams with other students, communications, business people and engineers in order to build a very excellent, and commercially useful project.

There are also quite a number of other UoW programs designed to help entrepreneurial engineers get started. They include:

• The Engineer of the Future Trust - A pool of discretionary micro-seed funding for budding engineering entrepreneurs at Waterloo.

• A variety of programs administered through the UoW Conrad Business, Entrepreneurship and Technology Centre. These include

• The Entrepreneurship Option in Engineering program, designed for students who want to explore entrepreneurship by taking courses to enhance their technical background with business skills. 

• The Enterprise Co-op program, which allows students to pursue an entrepreneurial co-op option to start their own business while earning co-op credits. 

• The Bridging Entrepreneurs to Students (BETS) program, established to support seed and early stage startup companies by pairing them with UoW co-op students. 

• The Master of Business Entrepreneurship and Technology (MBET) program, a three-term graduate program that combines nine interdisciplinary courses with a commercialization practicum.

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• The various programs taking place through the UoW Velocity entrepreneurship program, the largest free startup incubator in North America. These include:

• The Velocity Garage, a home base for up to 120 startups building cutting-edge technology in the heart of the Waterloo region. 

• The Velocity Fund, a non-equity grant program for startups that offers $375,000 annually to local startups in $5K to $25K increments. 

• The Velocity Residence, a unique opportunity for UoW students to live in an on-campus entrepreneurial environment. 

• Velocity Start, a new 6,000 sq ft space on-campus for people who want to learn about entrepreneurship and collaborate with like-minded people. 

• The Research Entrepreneurs Accelerating Prosperity (REAP) program, which connects undergraduate students to innovative businesses looking to develop new uses and markets for interactive display technologies.

• The Waterloo Commercialization Office (WatCo), which promotes the commercialization of leading-edge intellectual property opportunities arising from research enterprise.

Chuck Black.

Taken together, these programs provide both general insight into the way in which universities are changing to remain relevant in the 21st century and specific examples of how UoW is attempting to grow into a world class blending of commercial and educational training.

It will be interesting to see where it takes them.
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Chuck Black is the editor of the Commercial Space blog. He is very happy with his new t-shirt.

Is it "Science" without "Peer Review?" Federal Liberals told to be Wary of "Unmuzzled" Scientists

          By Henry Stewart

Senior Ottawa civil servants have warned the new Justin Trudeau government that "unmuzzled" scientists working in the Federal bureaucracy and on government research contracts should still be subject to tight controls and restrictions over their ability to freely distribute their findings and comment on issues of public policy.

"Above the fold." The upper half of the front page of the March 19th, 2016 Saturday Star where (traditionally)  the important news stories and photographs were placed. It's interesting to note the intentional juxtaposition of an "investigation" about local psychics (on the left, with photo) with an "exclusive" on the political dangers of "experts" and "scientists" speaking freely. The second article was on the right, which has also just got to raise eyebrows given the well known political slant of the publication. Graphic c/o Toronto Star.

As outlined in the March 19th, 2016 Toronto Star article, "Be wary of 'unmuzzled' scientists, Liberals told," documents prepared for Treasury Board president Scott Brison warned that, "when government policy and scientific pursuits don't align, the scientists may exact their revenge." Although not the federal minister responsible for science (that honour is currently held by Innovation Minister Navdeep Bains, who is supported by Science Minister Kirsty Duncan), the treasury portfolio is responsible for the government's overall communication policy.

The article also quoted Debbie Daviau, the president of the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada (PIPSC), the union which represents most government scientists, as stating that her members, "simply want the ability to speak publicly about their research."

As outlined on the PIPSC "Presidents New Year’s Message 2016," Daviau is also a strong advocate of "evidence-based public policy," which typically indicates a policy informed by rigorously established objective, and independently verifiable evidence.

It's also a valuable catchall set of criteria which scientists could use to disagree with any number of government policies. The specter of staff on the government payroll working against Liberal policies no doubt frightens the current government just as much as it frightened the previous one.

A September 2013 CBC News video focused around the protests against cuts to Canada's public science programs, which were announced in 2013 by the Stephen Harper government. Organizers also presented allegations that Canadian scientists were widely denied permission to promote their research, comment on their findings or even publish papers in peer reviewed journals without the approval of their supervisors. It will be interested to see if the protests resume now that it has been established that the current Liberal government is under the same pressures to restrict the free flow of information from publicly funded scientists. To see the rest of the video, please click here. Screenshot c/o You-Tube. 

But back in November, as outlined in the November 6th, 2015 Huffington Post article, "Liberals Unmuzzle Canadian Scientists, Promise They Can Now 'Speak Freely,'" then newly minted Minister Bains announced that he was fulfilling a Liberal party campaign promise to allow government scientists and experts to comment on their work to the media and the public.

At the time, the consensus was that the real test of the new policy would occur sometime in 2016, when some currently unknown Federal government employee attempted to talk about something which conflicted with Liberal government policy.

Welcome to 2016.

Of course, the real problem with the concept that evidence should be the one true criteria for the development of public policy has nothing to do with where you sit in the House of Commons. It has to do with who pays for the research and who gets to decide what to do with it.

Government scientists think that they're working for the Canadian people for a higher good while the politicians think the people elected them to administer, manage and guide the scientists.

Both consider themselves the appropriate guardians of the public trust. And eventually, the public will tell them which of their viewpoints is correct.
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Henry Stewart is the pseudonym for a Toronto based aerospace writer. 

Waiting for Garneau

          By Henry Stewart

Transport Minister Garneau. Photo c/o Sean Kilpatrick/ CP.

After the last election in October 2015, Canadian space advocates could reasonably have hoped that ex-astronaut and veteran Liberal MP Marc Garneau was about to be assigned a leading role in redefining the political landscape surrounding the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) and other Federal government drivers of research and technology.

But that happy day never arrived.

As the current Minister of Transport, Garneau is playing a decidedly supporting role in a series of decisions relating more to aerospace than space, which are being quarter-backed through the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) and Industry Canada's successor, the Ministry of Innovation, Science and Economic Development.

That's not to say Garneau doesn't have his hands full. After all, last week he agreed to put his department under "special oversight" by the Treasury Board after it was reported to have repeatedly overspent its budget. 

The last time transportation safety bubbled up into the public consciousness was during the 2013 Lac-Mégantic oil train disaster, which killed 47 and destroyed roughly half of downtown Lac Mégantic, PQ. The March 12th, 2016 PostMedia article, "If financing rail safety has no optics, is it worth it?" suggests that transport safety measures endorsed by the outgoing Harper government, along with new initiatives promised by the incoming Trudeau government are being held up until the Federal budget is tabled on March 22nd. Depending on what's in the budget, some of those initiatives might not ever see the light of day. Screenshot c/o Toronto Sun.

As outlined in the March 9th, 2016 Globe and Mail post, "Marc Garneau vows to fix Transport Canada’s financial situation," the Auditor-General raised concerns in the fall of 2013 over the number of Federal transport inspectors responsible for transportation safety and the costs associated with maintaining them. 

According to the article:

Transport Minister Marc Garneau says he’s “not happy” with the financial situation of his department and is vowing to fix the problem without sacrificing the department’s key role in protecting the safety of Canadians. 

But unions representing Transport Canada inspectors warn that ongoing restraint is putting safety at risk and that many of the staffing problems identified by the Auditor-General more than two years ago remain unaddressed. 

The Treasury Board is the Federal government's only statutory cabinet committee and is responsible for the federal civil service and much of the fiscal operation of the Canadian government.

The first Bombardier C-Series taking off on its maiden test flight at the Bombardier facility in Mirabel, PQ on September 16, 2013. As outlined in the November 21st, 2015 iPolitics post, "Mr. Trudeau’s Bombardier problem," Montreal based Bombardier was looking for the Federal government to bolster the recent billion dollar Quebec government investment in the company, either by providing further direct financial support of an equal amount or else by facilitating the sale of Bombardier jets to Toronto based Porter Airlines, which intended to operate them from Billy Bishop Airport on the Toronto Islands. As outlined in the November 13th, 2015 Toronto Star post, "Ottawa kills Porter’s plans for island airport jets," the Trudeau government eventually rejected this option, which set the stage for the latest Bombardier request for support. Photo c/o Canadian Press /Ryan Remiorz.

Of course, transportation safety isn't the only ball the Transport Minister has been tasked with juggling.

As outlined in the March 8th, 2016 Canadian Press article, "Liberals vote down Tory move to force Bombardier execs to testify at committee," Garneau has also taken point in Federal government discussions related to Bombardier and the types of government assistance it could reasonably expect to receive from the Trudeau government.

As outlined in the article:

Conservative MP Maxime Bernier, who introduced the motion to invite Bombardier executives to testify on why they need federal dollars, said opposition MPs likely won't get any answers from Bombardier or the government about a possible bailout until after it is announced. 

The move was part of a larger push by the Official Opposition to pressure the government over Bombardier's future, a possible federal bailout for the company and the government's decision not to allow a runway extension at the Billy Bishop airport in Toronto.

None of this is to suggest that the Transport Minister has any actual decision making responsibilities. Garneau is just the messenger, passing along the decisions of others and ready to take the flack should any of his political opponents feel the need to shoot the messenger.

 A cool new job. Graphic c/o Linked-In.

And none of the above is in any way related to the high hopes held by some space pundits back in November 2015, when all things seemed possible, although it is worth noting that at least one other CSA manager has joined the Transport Ministry to work with Garneau.

As outlined in his Linked-In profile another longtime CSA employee, former director of science and academic development Alain Berinstain was hired as director of policy in the Transport Ministry in December 2015.

It's unlikely that either will return to anything associated with the Canadian space industry anytime soon.

Besides, as outlined in the June 14th, 2015 post, "Jobu Won’t Save Your Space Start-up: Do it Yourself," governments were never really very helpful in this area, anyway.
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Henry Stewart is the pseudonym for a Toronto based aerospace writer. 

Bond, Beer and UrtheCast; Heineken Builds Event to Take "Selfies from Space"

          By Brian Orlotti

As part of a global marketing campaign for the recent James Bond film, 'SPECTRE,' powerhouse beer brewer Heineken International held a contest utilizing ultra HD satellite imagery provided by Urthecast Inc. of Vancouver, BC. The contest is an example of NewSpace firms reaching out to untapped, non-traditional markets for space technology.

Neither Bond nor "M" nor even "Basil Exposition," but useful background material nonetheless. Futurist Peter Diamandis discusses why we haven't gone back to the Moon or sent people to Mars and why this state of affairs will likely change soon because of innovative NewSpace companies like UrtheCast in this March 5th, 2016 video titled, "Why Don't We Explore More." Screen shot c/o Google Lunar XPRIZE.

As outlined in the March 7th, 2016 Marketing post, "Direct mail case study: Taking a selfie from space," back in November 2015, Heineken invited over 200 guests (including journalists, social media stars and other "opinion influencers") to a private party held at the Hoover Dam.

Organizers, using Urthecast's Deimos-2 satellite as well as its "Iris" camera mounted on the International Space Station (ISS), took ultra HD imagery of the party from space. In an innovative twist, the cameras were used in tandem to create satellite images of individuals. Proclaiming this to be the "first selfie from space,"

Heineken has dubbed this the "spyfie" and party guests were able to post their "spyfies" on social media.

The November 6th, 2015 Broadway World post, "Heineken Celebrates James Bond with World's First Selfie from Space Dubbed 'Spyfie'," quoted Urthecast CEO Scott Larson as  stating:

When Heineken approached us with the idea earlier this year, capturing a SELFIE from space was not something we'd ever attempted, but we were delighted to lend our technological expertise. 

This "Spyfie" showcases the capabilities of Deimos-2 in a truly original way, and highlights precisely what our camera and web technology provides tools for change and creative collaboration.

Urthecast's and Heineken's unique application of space technology to wow a non-technical/scientific audience is a definite change of tack. Traditional efforts at promoting space products and services have tended to focus on their technical/scientific merits rather than framing them as something (in the words of Steve Jobs), "insanely great."

Brian Orlotti.

Just as over decades of improvement and innovation computers and telecom gear evolved from arcane geek's toys to the hipster fetish items of today, so too must space tech.

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Brian Orlotti is a network operations centre analyst at Shomi, a Canadian provider of on-demand internet streaming media and a regular contributor to the Commercial Space blog.

High School Engineering Contests as the REAL Future of Innovation

          By Chuck Black

Ryerson on Saturday. Photo c/o Heather Young.

There was a time, back in the 1980's, when the Canadarm was the pinnacle of robotics technology and innovation could be jump started by adding a few tens of millions of dollars to the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) budget.

Those days are long past.

Anyone looking at the future of innovation and robotics today needs to start with events like the 2016 Greater Toronto Central Regional First Robotics Contest, which was held at Ryerson University in Toronto from March 2nd to March 5th.

As outlined in the March 4th, 2016 Toronto Star article, "Students gather at Ryerson for robot wars," teams from more than 40 different high schools spent six weeks building and designing robots to compete in a series of medieval themed match-ups designed to test their creations' capabilities and have a little fun.

The event, organized by First Robotics Canada, a registered charity established in 2001 and incorporated in 2004, is intended to inspire Canadian high school and elementary school students to pursue further studies and careers in science, technology and engineering.

Sponsors for the event included the Argosy Foundation, Boeing, Bruce Power, Dow Chemicals Canada, Hatch Engineering, Magna International, NASA, the Power Workers Union, the Ontario Ministry of Education, Redpath, Pratt & Whitney Canada, Rockwell Automation, Scotiabank, Synnex Canada, Union Gas, Xerox, a half dozen Canadian universities and quite a few others.

The crowded pit area where 40 teams prepared their machines to run the obstacle course. As outlined in the event program, teams work together in groups of three to breach a series of defined fortifications and "fire boulders" through goal posts in order to obtain points which determine the final winner. Photo c/o Heather Young.

Individual teams also received sponsorships from a variety of organizations including GM Canada, Qualcomm, RBC Wealth Management, Union Gas and others, which makes sense given that individual teams generally need to raise 10's of thousands of dollars in order to successfully compete.

The sponsors are happy to contribute because it gives them first look at Canada's next generation of manufacturing and robotics innovators. As outlined in the August 18th, 2013 post, "Jobs, Jobs, Jobs in Space!" a substantial portion of our current engineering workforce is nearing retirement age, and will need to be replaced over the next few years.

The event isn't even all that unique. It was simply one of approximately 125 equivalent events organized by First Robotics (seven of which are expected to take place in Canada) for elementary and high school students interested in robotics.

Typical of the robots entered into the competition is this 114.5 pound machine built over a six week period by students at the Runnymede Robotics Club, which operates out of the Runnymede Collegiate Institute in Toronto, Ontario, and which is sponsored by Thales, local Optimist and Lions clubs and others. From left to right the video shows Runnymede students Brent Watling, Brennan Stanfield, Rishab Bhatt, mentor Kelly Wilson and driver Keiran Wilson helping their 1310 unit engage its "tower scaling mechanism." The mechanism utilizes a compact scissor lift for scaling hook deployment, along with a dual motor winching mechanism and passive rope cleat restraints in order to prevent the robot from falling back to Earth at the end of the demonstration. Video c/o Jana El Aridi. 

As outlined on the March 9th, 2014 First Robotics post, "2016 FIRST Robotics Scholarships for Ontario Universities!," there are also multiple universities and colleges in Ontario that offer scholarships to graduating students participating in the FIRST Robotics Competition.

The charity also has the support of the public sector. As outlined on their website, "in April 2010, the Province of Ontario announced that it would make a grant of $3Mln CDN to FIRST Robotics Canada over five years to offer its programs to school boards across Ontario. In 2011 the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario announced at grant of $1.5Mln CDN over three years."

Chuck Black.

So while it's nice to hope that the Federal government can solve all our problems, it's also worth noting that the next generation of Canadian entrepreneurs and engineers is in good hands, no matter what the mandarins in Ottawa might happen to decide over the next two weeks.
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Chuck Black is the editor of the Commercial Space blog.

Say Splunge! 13 Space Orgs Release White Paper Advocating Nothing

          By Henry Stewart

A coalition of thirteen US space advocacy groups has released a slim white paper on space policy with the intent to avoid the appearance of indecisiveness, while not offending anyone or encouraging any real action.

Space Foundation CEO Elliot Pulham speaks at a March 4th, 2016 press conference at the National Press Club in Washington, DC to discuss a space policy white paper developed by a coalition of 13 organizations. Members include the Aerospace Industries Association (AIA), the Aerospace States Association (ASA), the American Astronautical Society (AAS), the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA), the Coalition for Deep Space Exploration, the Colorado Space Coalition, the Commercial Spaceflight Federation (CSF), the Satellite Industry Association (SIA), the Silicon Valley Space Business Roundtable, the Space Angels Network (SAN), Space Florida, the Space Foundation and the Students for the Exploration and Development of Space (SEDS). Photo c/o AIAA.

As outlined in the March 4th, 2016 Space News post, "Organizations offer space policy white paper to US presidential candidates," the white paper, under the title, "Ensuring US Leadership in Space," mostly just asked for stability and hoped that space issues would "not become a topic in this year’s US presidential campaign."

Also as outlined in the article, the major US Democratic and Republican presidential candidates have said little about space policy in the current campaign. None have yet released policy papers about civil or military space and have addressed the topic only in passing in campaign speeches or town hall meetings.

And while some space advocates have bemoaned that lack of public discussion about space, it’s a situation the coalition members expressly want to encourage. 

According to Space Foundation, CEO Elliot Pulham, who heads one of the organizations involved in the creation of the white paper, "to some extent, the purpose of this (the white paper) is not to have space become a big presidential issue.” 

The goal, he said, is to instead have presidential candidates “embrace the space program because it is quintessentially American.” According to Pulham, “we thought it would be a good time to have a platform of information out there that all candidates could refer to, learn from and take to heart as they plan their campaigns.”

In this classic Monty Python comedy sketch, the cowardly writers at a major Hollywood studio say "splunge," whenever asked by the studio founder (Graham Chapman in a Texan "cattleman" cowboy hat) to critique his idea for an upcoming movie. They all end up fired anyway. Screenshot c/o You-Tube.

Certainly the actual document is a five page fount of political platitudes. According to it, US leadership in space is at risk because of budget uncertainty, international competition, the space operating environment (an "increasingly congested, contested, and competitive domain") and workforce trends.

And the specifics of any of the potential solutions are intentionally avoided.

The solutions instead require "predictable budgets," a "continued global space engagement," the restoration of American access to space (by fully funding the NASA space launch system, the commercial crew and cargo programs and anything else NASA might like to try), the continued use of "fully competitive, innovative partnerships" (whatever that means) along with "strengthening and growing" the domestic industrial base for space companies.

Of course, platitudes do have their place. In the classic Monty Python sketch "Splunge," the head of a fictitious Hollywood studio browbeats his writers until one of them creates a made up word meaning "it's a great idea but possibly not and I'm not being indecisive" to respond to questions.

And that might be the real lesson of the white paper. The thirteen US space advocacy groups which contributed to its creation might have just learned a useful lesson.

They have learned to say "splunge." It's a good word.
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Henry Stewart is the pseudonym for a Toronto based aerospace writer. 

Part 5: A Short History of COM DEV International

Epilogue

By Robert Godwin 

The COM DEV website on February 8th, 2016.

As outlined most recently in the January 24th,2016 post, "Did the Government Let COM DEV Go Because They Have Bigger Fish to Fry?" iconic Canadian space company COM DEV International has been purchased by US based Honeywell International. 

And that's not the only recent sale of an iconic and militarily significant Canadian company to the US. 

There were once limits to the types of sales we would allow. 

For example, we don't allow foreign ownership of our chartered banks and in exchange for that quasi-monopoly our banks have acceded to some relatively stringent regulations which were certainly useful for cushioning our economy from the worst vicissitudes of the global meltdown of 2008. And, in 2009, we refused to allow BC based MacDonald Dettwiler (MDA) to be purchased by US based Alliant Techsystems (ATK).

In this new age of mega-data, information and incessant global security fears, it would simply seem prudent to establish safeguards to protect our high tech industry...

Michael Valentine O’Donovan died in 2005 having earned the order of Canada. He became a valuable member of the Galt/Cambridge community as well as a generous philanthropist.

His $5000 bet on Hansen and Springer's little start-up provided him with the life he had dreamed of since he was a child reading Arthur C. Clarke novels. His technology is aboard more satellites in the "Clarke" or geostationary orbit than almost any other technology made by any other company.

It's worth noting that COM DEV's largest contract ($160Mln CDN spread out over a decade) is also a government contract for Canada's contribution to the James Web Space Telescope (JWST). Hopefully the Federal government will find some new Canadian company to fund the next time they wish to contribute to an international partnership. Screenshot c/o CSA.

Would he have approved of his company being purchased by American interests? We'll never know. But what we do know is that he wasn't averse to buying and selling American companies when it suited his purposes.

But you might ask, is it a matter of scale? America has something like 30 times as many defense contractors as Canada so they can afford to lose them more readily. But this argument makes no account of the human factor; such as the many benefits and good jobs brought to the community of Cambridge by the presence of such an accomplished company. We can only hope that Honeywell recognizes that a solid, smart and technologically savvy work-force is worth more than a string of patents.

The evidence would seem to suggest that COM DEV was built on the back of no small amount of government largesse in its early years. Many millions of tax payer dollars, both directly and indirectly, have slipped into the COM DEV coffers since O'Donovan cut his deal with RCA in 1974.

But this is a game played by almost every country. You're either "in" or you're "out."

Being "in" doesn't just mean you get lots of grants and contracts, it also means you get to sit at the grown-ups table and learn the wiles and tricks of the trade. Governments don't like to give money to start-ups, but if you are useful and reliable then they don't like to miss out.

Being "out" means you aren't taken seriously. If your own government doesn't think you are worth supporting, what foreign government will?

COM DEV isn't the only Canadian company which has been sold to Americans since the current Federal government took power in November, 2015. As outlined in the January 27th, 2016 Globe and Mail article, "Liberals criticized for not conducting security reviews on foreign takeovers," the recent sale of the Allstream fiber-optic network to the US based Zayo Group also raised concerns over Liberal party policies in this area. As outlined in the article, in 2013, the Harper government blocked the sale of Allstream to an Egyptian telecom group on the grounds that it provided “critical telecommunications services to businesses and governments, including the government of Canada.” But that was then and this is now. Graphic c/o Globe and Mail.

Val O'Donovan was a dreamer. He was a history, Latin and English literature graduate who wanted to do something cool in outer space. So he forced himself to learn mathematics and engineering.

Canada proved to be a worthy host for his ambitions. He invented something clever and unique which could be applied to the technology invented by his hero Arthur C. Clarke. He likely would have enjoyed the irony of his company being purchased by the same company who designed all of the controls and systems for the spaceships seen in Clarke's greatest work, the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Robert Godwin.

At the end of the day COM DEV’s story carries many lessons that are relevant. It includes hard working immigrants, cutting edge dreams, government competence and incompetence, foreign investors, foreign purchases, political shenanigans and high achieving young people with dreams.

Like any true story there is always another chapter still to come.
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Robert Godwin is the owner and founder of Apogee Space Books. He is also the former space curator at the Canadian Air & Space Museum and the curator of the The Space Library, an online repository of 30,000+ pages of space information and papers. 

Please consider subscribing to the library for only $5. Your contributions help to support new research and the maintenance of the existing repository.

Last Week: Into the 21st Century as part 4 of "A Short History of COM DEV International" continues!

To Start at the Beginning, check out John Hansen, Samuel Singer and Michael Valentine O'Donovan in part 1 of "A Short History of COM DEV International."

Telesat makes Agreements, MDA likes the USA, COM DEV not Forgotten & NSERC has Needs

          By Henry Stewart

It's been a busy week, with the top two publicly traded Canadian space companies both reporting their quarterly earnings and a variety of other public, private and corporate advocates lining up their wish lists and concerns just in time for the upcoming Federal budget, expected over the next couple of weeks.

With all that in mind, here is a short listing of stories currently being tracked by the Commercial Space blog:

Telesat CEO Daniel Goldberg. Photo c/o Space News.

• Canada's largest space company, Ottawa based Telesat, had a quiet month but did announce that it had awarded two launch contracts to Hawthorne, California based SpaceX. 

As outlined in the February 26th, 2016 SpaceFlight Now post, "Telesat launch agreements awarded to SpaceX," the two satellites, Telstar 18V and Telestar 19V, are expected to launch as payloads on board separate SpaceX built Falcon 9 rockets sometime in 2018. 

And, at least according to the February 25th, 2016 Space News article, "Telesat to order two small Ka-band satellites to test constellation," Telesat was also about to order two small Ka-band telecommunications satellites to be launched into low Earth orbit in 2017. These satellites would be designed to validate technologies the company would apply to a global constellation of broadband spacecraft, which the article indicated could potentially be from Richmond, BC based MacDonald Dettwiler (MDA).

For more on the most recent Telesat quarterly earnings conference call, check out the February 25th, 2016 Telesat press release, "Telesat Reports Results for the Quarter and Year Ended December 31, 2015."

For more on what some Canadians think about domestic space companies outsourcing to US launch providers, check out the February 29th, 2016 SpaceRef Canada post, "Op-Ed - A Need for Canadian Space Access."

MDA CEO Friedmann. Photo c/o Space News.

• MDA president Daniel E. Friedmann, who runs Canada's second largest space company, has come out publicly with a statement that the California based MDA subsidiary Space Systems Loral (SSL) will be going after US military contracts, at least according to the February 25th, Space News post, "MDA Corp. to U.S. government’s satellite builders: We’re on our way."

The article quoted Friedmann, who until recently only really seemed to go on the record to complain about the Canadian government, as stating that the "US government dwarfs all other commercial and government markets for satellites" and he wants a piece of it. 

"SSL’s lack of access to U.S. military work is a handicap MDA can no longer accept," he said during the most recent quarterly MDA conference call, on February 24th. 

It's worth noting that MDA/SSL already has substantial access into the US civilian space sector, as illustrated most recently in the February 25th, 2016 MDA press release, "SSL selected to provide design work for NASA JPL asteroid mission" and the February 29th, 2016 MDA press release, "SSL developing robotic sample handling assembly for NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory Mars 2020 project." 

For a full account of the call, it's worth checking out the February 24th, 2016 MDA press release "MDA reports fourth quarter and full year 2015 results." 

An interesting overview of the tax consequences of the COM DEV sale to Honeywell and the spin off of its exactEarth subsidiary, based upon the December 23rd, 2015 SEDAR filing. "Circular of COM DEV International Ltd. (the “Company” for its spin-off of exactEarth Ltd. (“exactEarth”) and its acquisition by Honeywell Limited (the “Purchaser”)" from the Taxinterpretation.com website.

• Canada's third largest space company COM DEV International is gone, having been delisted from the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX) on February 9th, 2016 after its purchase by American multinational conglomerate Honeywell International. 

But it has not been forgotten. As outlined in the February 29th, 2016 Space News post, "Why didn’t Canada put up a fight for Com Dev?," there are many in Canada who are questioning the Federal government's decision not to interfere with the sale.

According to the article, the sale "came as the Conservatives were occupied trying to be re-elected. Parliament was not in session... (and, because of the election) federal government bureaucrats, who should have raised warning signs about the COM DEV sale, didn’t act."

The article also quoted Steven Staples, the vice president of the Ottawa-based Rideau Institute, which was instrumental in 2008 in leading opposition to an earlier proposed sale of MDA to US based Alliant Techsystems (ATK). According to Staples, the sale "flew completely under the radar for the public and politicians. This purchase is just as significant as Alliant’s attempt to buy MDA but the timing on this acquisition couldn’t have been better for the companies (COM DEV and Honeywell).”

NSERC president Mario Pinto. Photo c/o University Affairs.

• And finally, the president of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC), which isn't a private corporation, but is instead a Federal government bureaucracy bolstered by the recent election (especially the Liberal campaign promises to allow government scientists to comment publicly on their work), has released an interesting shopping list of department priorities under the title "NSERC 2020: A Strategic Plan." 

As outlined in the January 19th, 2016 University Affairs article, "NSERC’s big plans for the next five years – funds pending," many of the NSERC 2020 recommendations are dependent on the upcoming Federal budget, expected sometime over the next few weeks. 

As one of Canada’s three major funding councils (along with the National Research Council and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council), NSERC has a budget of $1.1Bln CDN, which goes to support the research of some 11,000 professors and 30,000 students in natural sciences and engineering. 

This mandate also provides for a lot of overlap with the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) which once had a similar mandate to support space focused research, but a far smaller budget (only a portion of its $350Mln CDN annual allocation).

As a result of the 2012 Emerson Aerospace Review most of the CSA R&D work has reverted to the funding councils. For a partial list of the ones which remain, check out the CSA Announcement of Opportunity webpage.

How will these stories develop? Only time will tell.

But time will also benefit from context. To develop the appropriate context, check out future posts from the Commercial Space blog.
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Henry Stewart is the pseudonym for a Toronto based aerospace writer. 

Part 4: A Short History of COM DEV International

Into the 21st Century

By Robert Godwin 

The COM DEV website on February 8th, 2016.

As outlined most recently in the January 24th,2016 post, "Did the Government Let COM DEV Go Because They Have Bigger Fish to Fry?" iconic Canadian space company COM DEV International has been purchased by US based Honeywell International.

But while we were happy enough to acquiesce to the COM DEV sale, there are limits to the types of sales we allow. 

For example, we don't allow foreign ownership of our chartered banks and in exchange for that quasi-monopoly our banks have acceded to some relatively stringent regulations which were certainly useful for cushioning our economy from the worst vicissitudes of the global meltdown of 2008.

And, in 2009, we also refused to allow BC based MacDonald Dettwiler (MDA) to be purchased by US based Alliant Techsystems (ATK).

In this new age of mega-data, information and incessant global security fears, it would simply seem prudent to establish safeguards to protect our high tech industry...

2000 was a slightly better year for COM DEV. Qualcomm invested $6Mln CDN as part of a licensing deal and shares went back to $12.65. In November the company announced anticipated growth from its M/ERGY high speed mobile product and turned a profit of $6.9Mln CDN for the year. A few weeks later the federal government under Prime Minister Jean Chrétien invested another $2.5Mln in the company to further develop the National Research Council (NRC) work done on surface acoustic wave technology.

COM DEV stock price and volume of trades on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX) covering the period from April 9th, 1999 until February 8th, 2016, when COM DEV was delisted from the TSX. As shown in the chart, COM DEV stock peaked on November 24th, 2000, dropped precipitously afterwards and never regained those heights. Graph c/o FactSet.

Three months later the company cut its wireless components business and posted losses yet again. This time shares dropped like a rock to $3. Consolidation was inevitable and just five days before the catastrophe of 9/11 they announced that they would be selling off their plants in England, China and New Brunswick.

Evidently the stock price had already fallen so low during the summer of 2001 that the events of 9/11 didn't have any immediate impact. Things were already pretty desperate. They lost $16Mln on the year and sold off their RF Conditioning and satellite ground station component business to Montreal's Mitec, essentially returning the company's very first business back to its home town.

By the summer of 2002 COM DEV share value was so low O'Donovan seized the opportunity and started to buy back stock. He then sold the company's broadband business, for an $11Mln CDN loss, to Axio Wireless of California. COM DEV shares plummeted to $1.53.

In the spring of 2003 the next big trough in the sky was the US Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI). This represented a massive cash-cow for any company who could acquire a piece of the action. The so-called "Star Wars" had been on contractors' radar since President Ronald Reagan had first expressed his desire to put an impenetrable umbrella over the United States in the 1980s.

SDI, or the "Star Wars" program, as it was called, was generally expected to cost upwards of $1 trillion dollars when it was developed in the 1980's. But the program was derailed by the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985 and the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Reaffirmation Act of 1987, both of which coincided with the growing public perception that a "peace dividend" or tax surplus would develop as defence programs were curtailed or cancelled in the aftermath of the fall of the Soviet Union. But after the events of September 11th, 2001, military spending again increased and all sorts of old ideas were back on the table. Graphic c/o The Space Handbook.

In the ensuing decades the idea had continued to stew in the corridors of Washington and it was once again back on the front burner as the repercussions to Western economies and security had been laid bare by the attacks of 9/11. Enormous pressure to join in on the program was brought to bear on Ottawa by the Bush Administration.

It became a contentious political issue in Parliament, but needless to say, companies like COM DEV were in dire need of a boost. The company publicly advocated for a role for Canada but the cards weren't going to fall their way. By the summer of 2003 COM DEV shares were at just $1.25. The CIBC and National Banks both stepped in and bought $9.5Mln worth, so that COM DEV could pay off an old promissory note it had made in a complex investment south of the border in 1998.

Between 2004 and 2009 COM DEV shares bobbed up and down from as low as $2.60 and as high as $6. The surging Canadian dollar hurt exports, but the company had made some smart moves hedging currency and was able to weather this latest storm. The advent of HDTV helped, as did contracts with the Europeans worth close to $15Mln and in Asia worth $9Mln.

According to financial house Guru Focus, over the past 13 years, the median trailing annual dividend yield of COM DEV stock was 1.64%. The company share price at the time of writing ( in early February 2016, just before the firm was officially delisted from the Toronto Stock Exchange on February 9th) is $5.62, but the Canadian dollar is once again down to about 75 cents US, which made the purchase of COM DEV particularly attractive.

Robert Godwin.

The timing of the purchase has raised some questions about "getting it done" while Trudeau's cabinet were still locating their offices. i.e. while no one was paying attention.

But based on historical fact it seems more likely that no one in Ottawa really cares.
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Robert Godwin is the owner and founder of Apogee Space Books. He is also the former space curator at the Canadian Air & Space Museum and the curator of the The Space Library, an online repository of 30,000+ pages of space information and papers. 

Please consider subscribing to the library for only $5. Your contributions help to support new research and the maintenance of the existing repository.

Last Week: From Strength to Strength. At Least for Awhile as part 3 of "A Short History of COM DEV International" continues!

Next Week: Epilogue as "A Short History of COM DEV International" concludes!

Toronto Based Kepler Communications Has Local Investors & Seattle Internship

          By Chuck Black

Kepler Communications, a small, Toronto, Ontario based start-up focused on building commercial “off the shelf” satellite re-transmitters (or "repeaters"), will be relocating to Seattle for the next three months.

Jeff Osborne and Wen Cheng Chong, two of Kepler's four co-founders, at the Space Frontier Foundation’s Northeast Regional NewSpace Business Plan Competition (BPC) in New York, NY. As outlined in the October 27th, 2015 press release, Kepler Communications Wins NewSpace Business Competition in Manhattan," Kepler received first place at the event. Photo c/o NewSpace NYC.

As outlined in the February 23rd, 2016 Geekwire post, "Here are the 9 startups in the Techstars Seattle 2016 class," Kepler will join eight other start-ups for an intensive three month internship to hone their solutions at the Seattle based Techstars Seattle accelerator. At the end of the program, they’ll pitch their products to prominent investors at Demo Day on May 18th.

As outlined in the article, the latest Techstars cohort will include startups focused on data analytics, gaming, drones, and other industries with a strong presence in the Pacific Northwest.

According to Kepler co-founder Jeffrey R. Osborne, "we have relocated to Seattle for this program, which is a major boost for us because of the space industry already developed out here. We will be here until the end of the program in May after which we will return to Toronto." 

Osborne and his partners may have good reasons to return to Toronto, According to Osborne, the company has developed a local group of "pre-seed" investors and advisers which include 

• Samer Bishay - a former systems engineer at MacDonald Dettwiler (MDA), who moved on to become the president of northern telecommunications provider Ice Wireless, wholesale VOIP services provider Iristel and upstart wireless cellphone company Sugar Mobile.

• Tony Lacavara - The entrepreneur who created Wind Mobile (Canada’s fourth-largest wireless carrier) once acted as chairman of the board for NewSpace company UrtheCast and currently serves as chairman of Globalive Holdings (a privately held Canadian communications and investment company), who was last profiled in the January 26th, 2016 post, "Tony Lacavera Has a New $100Mln Venture Capital Fund."

• The York Angel Investors - Several of the approximately 50 or so members of this organization have also provided assistance or contributed funding to Kepler. 

Canada is a latecomer to the idea of funding space activities through the use of traditional venture funding mechanisms. Seen above is a December 3rd, 2013 BBC News panel discussion on investing profitably in NewSpace start-ups with Virgin Galactic founder and chairman Richard Branson (on the left, connecting "via satellite") and Space Angels Network managing director Chad Anderson . As outlined in the February 7th, 2016 post, "2016 Could Be a Big Year for Space: Is Ottawa Paying Attention?," both Branson and Anderson have a decade long history funding NewSpace start-ups in the US and the UK. The Space Angels are even coming to Canada. As outlined in the February 19th, 2016 post "NRC-IRAP Aerospace Sector Team Partners with the Space Angels Network," the National Research Council -Industrial Research Assistance Program (NRC-IRAP) aerospace sector team has announced a partnership with the Space Angels to provide value added advisory services to Canadian space technology (CST) small and medium enterprises and serve as an introductory service  for Canadian companies looking to receive funding from Space Angel investors. Screen shot c/o Chad Anderson. 

Being accepted for Techstars wasn't the only important news for Kepler this year.

As outlined in the January 30th, 2016 Betakit post, "Ontario Centres of Excellence Grants $180,000 to Four Entrepreneurship Hatchery Startups," the company was one of four firms working out of the Entrepreneurship Hatchery, the University of Toronto engineering’s accelerator for student business ventures, to receive funding though the Ontario Centres of Excellence’s (OCE) SmartStart seed fund.

The $30,000 CDN received will be put towards bringing their products closer to market. According to Osborne, Kepler has also served stints with the Ryerson Digital Media Zone (DMZ) and the Toronto based Creative Destruction Lab and received funding from the University of Toronto Institute for Aerospace Studies (UTIAS) Start@UTIAS Entrepreneurship Program. According to Osborne:

The Start@UTIAS program originated last year through former Aastra Technologies CEO Francis Shen (who made the initial $1Mln CDN contribution to begin the fund) and I don't think we've publicly thanked them for the initial financial support we received through that program. 

I think it would mean a lot to them to have that recognition.

A good case can be made that the fund raising route taken by Kepler Communications through a series of public and private incubator and accelerators and past a variety of angel and institutional investors is a template for future commercialization and fund-raising in the space industry.

Chuck Black.

But while this route may not be the easiest or the only route to the top, there's no doubt that, at least for Canada, this new path is well worth exploring.

For those interested in learning more, Kepler Communications was first profiled in the August 31st, 2015 post, "Canadian NewSpace Start-Up to Offer Commercial Satellite Repeaters."
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Chuck Black is the editor of the Commercial Space blog.