Grants and Contributions

(20STDPK17) This project adds a game changing capability to Space Situational Awareness (SSA) domain to protect satellites against emerging and evolving threats.
Current space surveillance satellites have a system response time of up to 32 hours in revisiting and tracking Resident Space Objects (RSO) threats. The capabilities developed here enable a space surveillance satellite to do onboard closed-loop tracking of RSOs in real time, providing intelligence and threat alerts with no latency.
This project will explore cutting edge machine learning methods for object detection in SSA domain as well as take advantage of state-of-the-art System on a Chip hardware for application deployment.
The biggest benefit to Canadian public is the protection of critical Canadian Space infrastructure including telecommunications satellites, Canadian surveillance missions, and weather & climate monitoring missions.

(20STDPK29) The scope of current project includes development work on three key sub-systems of software-defined satellites:
• On-board processor (OBP): development of direct sampling at Ku/Ka-Band, a key aspect of any modern space based OBP.
• User link antennas: development of a reconfigurable Array-Fed Reflector antenna to complement the next generation of on-board processors.
• Gateway and Inter-Satellite Link antennas: development of antenna components operating at very high frequencies, up to E-Band, to maximize communication bandwidth and satellite capacity.
This work will increase MDA competitiveness on the emerging market of software defined satellites. These sub-systems can be used on LEO, MEO or GEO satellites to support telecommunication, remote sensing and earth observation missions.

(20STDPL16) To prevent cyberattack, satellite communications are often encrypted using encryption keys loaded onto the satellite before launch. Should keys be compromised, it is impossible to load new keys onto a satellite in orbit.

QEYnet is developing a solution to this issue using Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) technology, in which encryption keys are sent from the ground to the satellite as a stream of individual photons. By the laws of quantum mechanics, any attempt at eavesdropping on a QKD system can be detected, so the encryption keys produced are highly secure.

However, deviations in real hardware from the theoretical ideal can result in unintended side-channels and vulnerabilities, exposing QKD to attack. This project will test a novel system of countermeasures addressing these vulnerabilities, enabling a rapid transition of the QKD technology toward commercial readiness.

Robust satellite encryption benefits every Canadian.

(20STDPL35) The objective of this project is to increase the functionality of our HW/SW codesign methodology by targeting high performance on-board processing platforms that are made of CPU-FPGA architectures and target artificial intelligence applications in space, more specifically based on Deep Neural Network (DNN).

We will target for Spacecraft Pose Estimation to demonstrate the potential of these processing platforms.

We will concentrate on the inference part of deep learning that can be implemented as a payload application on the satellite.

This project aims to develop new techniques allowing the optimal use of the on¬board processing resources offered by CPU-FPGA platforms, while reducing the effort and the time to market.

The project is developing technologies in several directions that benefits many Canadian companies.

Replacement of Large Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) satellites used for Earth mapping, surveillance and monitoring can take more than a decade and is very expensive. An alternative would consist of using a constellation of several identical small and inexpensive satellites, making the satellite easy to reconfigure and to replace.

The project objective is to design a mission consisting of a formation of four small satellites (CubeSats) meeting a SAR mission's requirements, demonstrating that it is possible to meet these requirements with small satellite platforms compared to large ones. There are many benefits to the use of small satellites, including shortened development times and lower mission costs. These satellites provide inexpensive platforms to test new technologies in space, and they enable the use of formations and constellations of satellites.

The collapsing of soft material is a challenging issue for the earth's gravity additive manufacturing process of soft tissues or material (i.e. building a component in layers by depositing material). The main objective of this project is to develop a platform for a reduced gravity environment that can assess a considered additive manufacturing process (metal/biomaterials) for an optimum outcome with minimal defects while simultaneously performing instant measurements of surface energy and surface tension of a solid substrate and a liquid, respectively.

The knowledge of the change in the volume and density of the solidified material with the technology to quantify surface forces is a scientific innovation for numerous applications pertinent to future space missions. The same platform can be easily modified to test the ability of the in-house developed liquid material for 3D printing. The successful implementation of this project will comment on the feasibility to use space travel as a revenue source through the manufacturing of biomedical components which are difficult to manufacture with earth's gravity.

Stratospheric balloon telescopes, operating above 99.5% of the Earth's atmosphere, avoid atmospheric distortions present in terrestrial ground based telescopes, thus improving the observation of stars.

The project goal is to repair and upgrade the Superpressure Balloon-borne Imaging Telescope (SuperBIT) telescope to improve, in particular, star camera performance and automatic telescope focus/alignment. The SuperBIT telescope will provide large images of distant galaxies with detail comparable to NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. This project will pave the way for future telescopes with even greater capabilities and will additionally explore other applications, including earth observation.

Reliable climate data is crucial for Canadians to understand how our climate is changing. The Canadian Atmospheric Laser Absorption Spectroscopy Experiment Test-bed (CALASET) aims to build a suite of instruments to verify measurements from Earth-observing satellites. It is important to ensure that these space-based instruments are performing well to produce critical climate data.

The CALASET-Next Generation (CALASET-NG) project furthers this development with two main objectives: 1) develop new technologies for measuring gases in the atmosphere and provide a validation and verification capability for current and future satellite missions, and 2) provide concept-to-flight education and training for the students who will become the scientists and engineers needed for future satellite missions.

The project team will design, build and test innovative instrumentation for measuring how atmospheric gas concentrations change with height, and will analyze these data following the instruments' flight on a stratospheric balloon.

Over the next decade, advancements in X-ray detectors will revolutionize our understanding of some of the most extreme events in the Universe. It will be possible to measure precisely and simultaneously the energy and arrival time of X-ray radiation coming from astrophysical sources.

The project aims to answer fundamental questions in astrophysics, leading to a better understanding of the nature and workings of neutron stars, black holes and the remnants of supernova explosions—the astrophysical objects driving the energetic and chemical evolution of our galaxy and beyond. The next generation of highly qualified personnel will be trained to get the most out of new large datasets by using observations from launched space-based missions, such as the Neutron star Interior Composition Explorer (NICER) onboard the International Space Station. They will be also trained to work on future missions and tackle the large datasets that businesses and governments use today.

Increasing variable and unpredictable sea ice conditions in Canadian Arctic waters require the development of technologies for enhancing domain awareness, mitigation hazards, and understanding environmental change.

As part of Multidisciplinary drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate (MOSAiC), researchers in the project, committed to understanding the consequences of Arctic climate change, are deploying microwave scatterometer systems on the sea ice in order to collect snow and sea ice geophysical property measurements, microwave scatterometer measurements, and multi-sensor satellite observations. Data collected will enable researchers to develop information products, addressing the social and environmental consequences of rapidly changing ice conditions in Canadian waters, decreasing risks from sea-ice associated hazards, and improving the accuracy of short-term weather and sea ice forecast.