Grants and Contributions

McMaster University will develop the NEUDOSE CubeSat. It will test an instrument that may offer new ways to measure the amount of radiation to which astronauts could be exposed during spacewalks, as it poses serious risks to their health. This instrument has the potential to replace current dosimetry equipment on board the International Space Station. It's measurements will be used to identify high dose rate areas and incoming solar storms, and to improve radiation modelling tools in preparation for future deep-space missions.

NEUDOSE will be developed in collaboration with Ontario-based Mohawk College, as well as Bubble Technology Industries Inc. and NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in the USA.

The ESSENCE mission will test a Canadian-developed wide-angle camera to observe snow and ice coverage in Northern Canada. The information collected through its images could help map the thawing of Arctic ice and permafrost and give a better picture of the impacts of climate change in the region. It will additionally test a solar energetic proton detector, provided by the University of Sydney, to collect data that will enable a better understanding of the effect of Solar Proton Events (SPEs). SPEs are the result of solar activity during which radioactive protons emitted by the Sun become highly energized. The level of radioactivity caused by such events can penetrate and cause damage to the structure and electronic components of spacecraft in their paths. Understanding these events and their effects could help improve the design of CubeSats so they are more resistant to radiation.

The CubeSat will be developed in collaboration with Canadensys Aerospace, ICT Seneca College of Applied Arts and Technology and the University of Sydney in Australia.

The OneWeb satellite constellation will bring affordable broadband Internet access to the world. The satellites are expected to spend five years in operation before deorbiting using internal propulsion systems.

MDA will collaborate with OneWeb to conduct a feasibility study identifying a cost-effective design for an Active Debris Removal (ADR) system using flight-proven, robotic capture technology. This capacity will be an important development for the safety of satellite operations and the reduction of debris orbiting Earth.

Title: Behaviour Analytics from Multi Earth Observation Satellite Data. The project aims to generate higher-level fusion results that characterize the behaviours of objects. This represents information that is of high value to users. These results are derived from object-level data using machine learning technologies and by fully exploiting the available very large and diverse EO data archives. These very large datasets also present special challenges including storage, access and processing speed, data representation, and fusion methodology that is this project will address.

Detection and Monitoring of Linear Hazards to Travel on Lake Ice

A study is proposed to investigate linear lake ice hazards during the spring melt period using multi-sensor remote sensing data and ice validation using C-band data. After melt onset, the hazards to late season lake ice travel form first along pressure ridges, leads, and cracks where the mechanical strength of the ice sheet is compromised. The horizontal ice sheet containing linear deformations will be imaged as a time series in the south basin of Lake Winnipeg using spatially complete microwave, optical, thermal, and elevation data from RADARSAT-2, WorldView-4, and an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle. Image data will be collected at eight-time steps, including one during late winter.

Title: Mapping of agricultural soils by Earth observation big data mining (ScanSol). ScanSol aims to create new opportunities for mining large quantities of images acquired via the different Earth observation satellites to provide the agricultural community with reliable information on the stable (texture) and variable (fertility) characteristics of agricultural soils. The most advanced big data mining techniques will be applied to all the optical and SAR images on the site of interest located in the Montérégie, Quebec's agricultural region.

Low-Earth-orbit (LEO) satellite constellations currently under development will require the use of high-speed optical inter-satellite links to move vast amounts of data within the satellite mesh. To achieve this, satellite optical terminals will need to have precision acquisition and tracking capability to establish and maintain the tightly focused optical communications links.

COM DEV will develop the Optical Pointing and Tracking Relay Assembly for Communication (OPTRAC) system to provide the necessary fine pointing, tracking, point-ahead and optical fibre coupling to receive and transmit communication signals between optical terminals.

There are around 20,000 human-made Resident Space Objects (RSOs) in orbit around Earth. This includes functioning satellites, as well as non-functional pieces of debris, and these numbers are continuing to rise. It is important to track the location of RSOs in order to prevent potential collisions and damage to functioning satellites. Currently, only small portions of the sky can be monitored by space-based RSO detectors, and Earth-based detectors are limited by cloud cover and daylight cycles.

Magellan Aerospace proposes to adapt commercial star trackers, a type of sensor used for high-accuracy pointing in satellites, to detect and track RSOs. Using star trackers is an attractive solution, since almost every satellite in orbit could contribute to the RSO database using existing onboard hardware with no interruption to the satellite's main mission. This technology would greatly enrich the RSO monitoring database and can lead to reduced incidence of RSO collisions through improved monitoring and early warnings.

The purpose of this grant is to provide support to a Canadian user of the ASTROSAT satellite. This project is based on the observations of composite stellar systems in the environment of the Virgo and Coma cluster of galaxies.

The Command & Data Handling (C&DH) unit is a satellite's control centre, providing the spacecraft platform with control and monitoring of all subsystems. With the increase in demand for smaller platforms and constellations, more compact and capable C&DH units are required. As a result, a significant amount of innovation is needed to combine all of the necessary functions into a smaller, more compact unit.

MDA will develop new portions of the C&DH unit, while creating innovative methods to reduce mass, power, cost, and resource utilization, and maximizing performance, reliability and flexibility.