Redefining Canada’s role in space
With budgets shrinking, and expensive commitments like the International Space Station, the Canadian Space Agency re-plots its future.
There is no up, down, left or right in space – an absence of clear direction that also applies these days to any Canadians whose business lies in space.
Where is Canada headed in space? During the 1980s and 1990s the Canadian Space Agency wrote three successive Long Term Space Plans to chart our course. These directives steered us through the glory years of building Canadarms and other robotics, launching two Radarsat satellites and helping build the International Space Station.
Because Canada is a smaller player than NASA or other giants, these plans concentrated on doing a few things really, really well.
But there’s been no new plan since before the millennium. University researchers are uncertain where to focus; companies that build satellites and robots wonder what to design. Mars rovers? Telecom satellites?
Now the space agency is quietly beginning to plan, just as the federal industry minister promised four years ago.
The problem today: With federal budgets shrinking, and expensive commitments like the International Space Station, it’s tough to boldly go very far.
Back in 2008, industry minister Jim Prentice promised fast action on a long-term plan.
He assigned the CSA’S president, veteran astronaut Steve Maclean, to write a draft as soon as possible.
Maclean did produce a 10-year draft plan after long, productive talks with Canada’s space “communities” – universities and industry.
And then it all stopped. No plan ever became public.
“It’s been a bit of a mystery to us what happened,” says Iain Christie, CEO of Ottawa’s Neptec Design Group. Industry members saw drafts of the long-term plan, liked it, but believe it stalled at the cabinet level.
He argues planning is vital: “Space is along-term business. things take a long time to get done because they’re high-tech, because they’re complicated. If you don’t plan ahead ... then you’re always blowing from one priority to another. You don’t make a lot of progress.
“Even in our daily lives we plan ahead so why would we not plan ahead something as important for the country as a space plan?”
The space agency refused to discuss the matter this week.
The private sector is uncharacteristically criticizing the federal lack of direction. Canadian companies have a good working relationship with the space agency, and if problems occur they tend not to criticize their biggest customer.
Yet there was Macdonald, Dettwiler and Associates Ltd., putting out a news release March 30 warning of “uncertainty” in federal support for a major project. Radarsat Constellation is a package of at least three satellites that will observe Earth from space, and MDA, the prime contractor, thinks there’s not enough cash to build them.
It warned investors that “the (federal) budget does not include the funds required to continue the RADARSAT Constellation Mission (RCM) as currently envisioned. At this time MDA is uncertain on the way forward on Phase D of RCM and expects to work with its customer to seek clarification over the coming weeks.
Given the level of uncertainty, the company is accelerating its steps to restructure its workforce related to this event.”
Phase D means building the first satellite.
However, a new CSA planning “consultation” is now under way.
“The story is just unfolding as we speak with the space agency,” said Mike Dixon of the University of Guelph, an expert in life support on spacecraft.
The CSA is contacting outside experts in a series of teleconferences. One discussion has taken place.
While the CSA won’t discuss this publicly, Dixon says over the next month it will discuss a draft proposal for space with these experts.
Industry wants to see a “signature technologies” list – a list of the space agency’s top choices as technologies it wants to develop, he said.
“There are nuts and bolts of different projects that we’re committed to, but in terms of growing the busi- ness in space exploration in Canada, that’s still a tough call right now” because of the economic difficulties.
“Nobody wants to hear my story that space exploration is probably the most significant economic engine that we could aspire to in Canada. (But) a measly $300-million annual budget (the approximate CSA budget) isn’t going to cut it.”
“The opportunity to develop new initiatives is obviously extremely limited in the near future, simply because of budgetary constraints.”
Many university researchers who worked closely with the space agency in the past – such as a major group at York University – have not heard of any new planning.
Nor has Neptec’s Iain Christie. “If that’s being resurrected, then that’s good news,” he said.
Canada’s past successes all came from long-range planning, he said.
“It allowed to us to allocate the money and resources over the long term and make sure that we actually got things done.”
Asked to name an area where a lack of federal planning holds his company back, he replied: “Everything. We can’t do anything because we don’t have a long-term commitment.”