Grants and Contributions

The use of electric orbit raising, instead of chemical propulsion, after launch and separation of the satellite from the launcher to reach the geostationary orbit allows reducing propellant mass, and therefore increasing the maximum allowable spacecraft dry mass. However, today's existing electric propulsion pointing systems are limited in their degrees of freedom and are available at a high price.

MDA will develop the Three Axis Deployable Stationary Plasma Thruster Module (TSM), allowing an intensive and efficient use of electric propulsion on telecommunications satellites, both for the orbit-raising phase and the station-keeping manoeuvres. The TSM is a very versatile system, able to re-point thrusters continuously during multiple years of in-orbit life, and benefits from past developments of actuators qualified for constellation missions' antennas.

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.

Radiation prediction, monitoring, and protection technologies are a key part of all space missions. The construction of radiation detectors for long-duration exploration missions presents particular challenges because of stringent size, weight and power requirements.

The proposed work aims to assess silicon photomultipliers as an enabling technology for miniaturized radiation spectrometers. These silicon devices have the potential to replace traditional, bulky photomultiplier tubes, significantly reducing the size and power consumption of radiation-detection instrumentation with little or no loss of performance when compared to traditional photomultiplier tubes. Potential applications of this technology include exploration missions to the Moon and Mars, stratospheric balloon flights, and small satellite missions, as well as use in terrestrial fields such as homeland security, law enforcement and health physics.

Tracking, Telemetry and Control (TT&C) systems monitor satellite functionality, determine the satellite's location and control the satellite's behaviour. It is a required technology on all satellites, regardless of their application. As the market for communications satellites grows, regulators of the operating frequency bands have encountered challenges regarding the range of the usable band spectrum for navigation, communication, and Earth observation payloads.

Orbital Research will develop a TT&C receiver for partner Tethers Unlimited, to be integrated into that company's TT&C system. The receiver will operate in a new frequency band, outside the commercially available range. In addition to the new band, the Orbital Research receiver will be much smaller than comparable receivers and hardened for use in space, making the receiver ideal for small satellites.

The Autonomous Soil Assessment System 2.0 (ASAS), building upon previous work by Mission Control Space Services, will improve rovers' ability to navigate through unknown environments by detecting a much broader variety of terrains and hazard types through the use of artificial intelligence, and specifically deep learning techniques. ASAS can be employed to improve mission safety and efficiency in two ways: by running on ground station computers to help rover operators plan safe routes, or by operating in real time as a software payload onboard the rover to increase its autonomy by allowing it to handle hazard detection automatically.

Launching satellites is an expensive and unreliable process, yet demand for microsat launch services increases year after year.

Reaction Dynamics is pioneering a revolutionary, inherently safe type of propulsion system. This technology demonstration aims to develop the competencies necessary to use hybrid rocket engines in launch vehicles, and build and operate launch vehicles reliably. Additionally, other systems for supporting space launch operations, such as ground infrastructure, supply chains, avionics and communication systems, will be developed. Within this proposal, Reaction Dynamics hopes to launch the flight demonstration vehicle to an altitude of at least 100 km by early to mid-2020. Starting as early as 2023, the company aims to jump-start an orbital satellite launch service in Canada, targeting the emerging market of CubeSats, microsats as well as Earth observation missions.

Aerospace designers often use software that simulates complex electronic systems to evaluate the performance of different architectures and to refine software and hardware early in the development stage.

Heterogeneous computing systems (systems using more than one type of processor) offer advantages over homogenous systems in terms of speed and agility in processing, but aerospace simulation software has not yet been designed for computing systems with more than one processor. Space Codesign Systems proposes to develop a heterogeneous computing platform which will allow aerospace designers to more easily and efficiently design models of complex electronic systems, including those with embedded systems.

Inertial navigation is a technology that allows vehicles to determine how their position has changed over time, without needing to use outside resources (such as GPS). Currently, spacecraft operators must rely on external references such as radio tracking for navigation, but a method of autonomous navigation is highly desired for situations where ground-based communications are not possible.

However, all current inertial navigation instruments suffer from an unavoidable drifting bias, causing a position error in the navigation solution which grows rapidly with time. The inaccuracy grows after a few hours to a level that is unacceptable for most space flight applications, especially for long-term exploration-class missions to other planets. Recently, Gedex developed a method using a pair of gimballed accelerometers that completely eliminates the drifting bias, slowing down the degradation of the navigation solution to the point where it can be useable for weeks or months. This revolutionary capability has immediate applications for asteroid exploration and long-duration, low-thrust space flight to other planets, and eventual applications for planetary rover exploration.

With advances in miniaturization of electronics, new materials and new manufacturing methods, significant space missions that were once the exclusive domain of large spacecraft can now be performed using spacecraft that are one-tenth the size. One factor still limits the types of missions that these new small and nimbler spacecraft can perform: the lack of significant propulsion that is safe, affordable and easy to integrate.

Continuum Aerospace, with partners Canadore College and the University of Waterloo, are leveraging expertise in new rocket propulsion technologies, direct metal laser sintering 3D printing, and enhanced computational modelling to develop a new thruster system using non-toxic, easy-to-handle propellants which is small enough to fit these smaller spacecraft designs. This thruster system will be the first of its kind in Canada, and will provide Canadian spacecraft designers and mission planners with the ability to undertake new types of missions at a lower cost with enhanced thrust.

Actuators transform electrical energy into mechanical energy to move and control mobile devices. Magnetorheological (MR) actuation is a unique technology with exceptional dynamic performance thanks to the MR fluid's viscosity that increases when exposed to a magnetic field, almost to the point of becoming solid. Actuators using MR fluids present characteristics making them very interesting for use in space compared to other types of actuators: increased performance, lower mass and more safety when used for applications involving human-robot interactions.

Exonetik proposes to study the feasibility of using MR actuators in inhabited space environments for future space missions. More specifically, the work will consist in assessing the most critical risks of using MR actuators in space environments: launch vibrations, in-use outgassing, and safety of use. The biggest technological unknown lies around outgassing. Conventional off-the-shelf MR fluids use hydrocarbon-based oils and are known to outgas significantly in some operating conditions. The working hypothesis is that a custom formulation designed specifically for low outgassing, and involving perfluoropolyether (PFPE), would perform well in a space environment.