Grants and Contributions

CubeSat NB will provide new insights into the behaviour of Earth's upper atmosphere including the ionosphere. It will receive signals transmitted by global navigation satellite systems, such as GPS, and they travel through the ionosphere and are affected by it. Researchers will be able to use the data to further study how the ionosphere changes from place to place over time as well as how it responds to space weather. Significant space weather events can interfere with communications systems and electrical grids. CubeSat NB will additionally carry three cameras. Two cameras will allow the team to study the distribution of oxygen in the upper atmosphere, capturing images of the red and green light oxygen atoms given off during aurora and airglow events. The images will be used to examine the varying composition of the ionosphere and its response to solar storms. The third camera will be used to take images of Earth's surface for Earth science and meteorology applications. Knowledge of Earth's oceans is critical to understanding climate change.

The New Brunswick CubeSat will be jointly built with the University of Moncton and the New Brunswick Community College (NBCC) campus in Saint John.

Western University in partnership with Nunavut Arctic College's CubeSat will conduct a flight-test with a novel imaging system for engineering technology demonstration with the potential to provide virtual reality-ready images. This imaging system has future applications in Earth observation and space exploration. Testing will demonstrate imaging modes for different in-orbit functions. By taking CubeSat operations into the classroom, it will help enhance the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) outreach program of the Western University's Centre for Planetary Science and Exploration (CPSX). This will include student from Southwestern Ontario schools and Nunavut Arctic College. Remote access to the CubeSat will facilitate live demonstrations of how to send commands and how to interpret data received. These activities will complement the existing classroom activities and build upon previous work developed at Western in enabling remote access to laboratory equipment.

The Western University and Nunavut Arctic College CubeSat Project will be developed in collaboration with Canadensys and MDA.

ORCA²Sat will develop and test new advancements in technology to better understand “dark energy”, and enigmatic form of energy making up 75% of the universe believed to cause the universe to expand at an accelerating rate. Operating with two payloads, this CubeSat will calibrate a number of both optical and radio observatories in an effort to reduce uncertainties associated with measurements of the universal expansion rate. These calibrated measurements may provide new insights into the nature of dark energy and the universal expansion rate.

ORCA²Sat is to be developed in collaboration with Simon Frasier University, the University of British Colombia, the Technical University of Lisbon in Portugal, Harvard University in the USA, the National Research Council, and Space Systems Loral based in the USA.

Dalhousie University CubeSat (DUCS) will test a new CubeSat frame made out of lightweight metal which will provide better space navigation capabilities for future CubeSats. It will as well validate the use of onboard solar energy and battery storage technology to power a stabilization wheel that will better control the position of the satellite's instruments.

DUCS will be developed in collaboration with IMP Aerospace and Xeos Technologies, Inc.

Killick-1 will test an existing technology designed to monitor oceans (sea-ice detection and concentration estimation) and fit it on the smaller CubeSat frame, which could lead to cheaper solutions to monitor and collect data on our oceans.

Killick-1 will be developed in collaboration with Newfoundland-based C-Core and the University of Prince Edward Island.

Novel Early Season Crop Type Classifier by Improved Utilization of Multi-frequency PolSAR and Electro-optical Data

A.U.G. Signals Ltd. will utilize multi EO satellite data, including RADARSAT, to perform innovative research and development towards developing a practical early season crop type classification product. Specifically, an early season classification procedure for key summer crops in western Canada such as canola, wheat, soybean and corn will be obtained. This development could also be extended to other crop types and regions. A successful product in this area is essential for the development of Canada-wide crop disease risk monitoring tool and will also help in the early prediction of expected crop production.

A Remote Sensing Virtual Machine incorporating multiple space-based data and M2M connections in a cloud-compatible environment

Kepler has evolved monitoring techniques which use satellite radar data to monitor water extent, water level and water flow, with a focus on wetlands. In this project, improvements will be made via:
- The integration of multiple sources of earth observation data and ancillary data to improve of accuracy of monitoring results;
- State-of-the-art computing technologies preparing Kepler's techniques for expanded use in terms of access by user groups and expanded geographic coverage.

RADARSAT M2M Cloud Platform

The project intends to provide cloud-based processing for RADARSAT-2 and RCM via the SkyWatch platform to enable machine to machine integration. The service will facilitate Earth Observation applications combining RADARSAT data with data from other missions including Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 as well as very high resolution commercial products.

CAMDAS Earth Observation Data Exploitation Tool Development

SSCL, along with its project partners Maerospace Corporation, 4DM, and Planet is conducting research to validate a concept for an advanced Maritime Doman Awareness (MDA) system. This system exploits the explosion of commercial earth observations satellites and advanced data analytics to establishes persistent, global MDA. Planet designs, builds and operates the world's most capable constellation of earth-imaging satellites and they are providing access to a rich dataset that will be used to evolve the tools and techniques to advance CAMDAS to a fully operational system.

Title: Utilization of Multi Radar Data Sets with Advanced Data Fusion Techniques. Exploitation of RADAR data sets using InSAR technology to measure heave and subsidence has been proven but frequency and resolution differences between the satellites has meant that the archives have always been processed separately and could not be combined, thus limiting the potential to track change over the life of multi missions. The objective of this project is to combine ERS, Envisat, R1/R2, Sentinel and X-band data in the InSAR domain.