Grants and Contributions

The state-of-the-art materials used for Lunar and Martian missions are designed for shorter-term missions with only limited digging or mining. The future of space exploration calls for much longer-term missions, including bases, and the possibility of space mining. This will require the development of materials and coatings that will last much longer and resist regolith abrasive wear under much more aggressive conditions of space mining.

The primary purpose of this project is to study the ability of materials and coatings to resist the abrasive wear from regolith, which is the abrasive dust found on the surface of the Moon and Mars. The main objectives are to develop a test to characterize regolith abrasive wear for common structural materials and to develop coatings to resist regolith abrasive wear. The coatings developed to resist regolith abrasive wear can be adapted to other industries in Canada that face similar aggressive conditions, such as mining, oil and gas, aerospace and hydropower.

The potential to identify and analyze distributions of isotopologues would provide new opportunities in the search for biosignatures of life as part of astrobiology-related space missions.

This project aims to extend the capabilities of a planetary science laboratory instrument that combines three measurement techniques for Mars exploration: laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy, Raman spectroscopy and time-resolved laser-induced fluorescence. In particular, the laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy mode of the instrument will be extended to measure isotopes of key elements important for dating and discrimination of biological and abiological signatures.

This work will result in new knowledge on the environmental sensitivity of these techniques in environments relevant to the Earth, Moon, Mars, asteroids and comets; providing new capabilities for planetary exploration. It will also be valuable in understanding and updating the requirements for a future flight instrument.

This projects aims to identify blood indicators for deconditioning (a state of extreme weakness) from available blood samples. Astronauts experience deconditioning when travelling between gravity environments. Similarly, bedridden patients may develop deconditioning requiring rehabilitation treatment in the hospital. The effect of microgravity on physiological systems is unclear and there is a lack of tools for early detection of deconditioning and for testing countermeasures designed at mitigating the negative effects on health. Early detection of deconditioning in microgravity through a blood molecular signature enables the early assessment of immune functions and the prevention of infection with available medication.

Our previous scientific participation in bedrest studies, an on-Earth model of microgravity, and collected blood samples from participants, provides an opportunity to complement our ongoing gene expression analyses with measures of proteins. This research project provides students with biological samples to identify biomarkers of deconditioning and to isolate the biological effects of bedrest. Findings can be applied for the early detection of deconditioning in bedridden patients from a blood sample.

Aquatic ecosystems are changing as a result of global climate change. When ice in permafrost melts in the Arctic, aquatic ecosystems are impacted when sediment and organic matter are released into rivers and lakes. These changes have effects that include impacts on nutrient cycling, oxygen depletion and fish populations. While these changes have been documented for many lakes across the Arctic, we have no information on their geographical extent and how to best map and monitor the situation.

The research project focusses on how to use field observations and Earth Observation satellite data to augment insight into the spatial and temporal scope of these changes. Results will enable more timely and cost-effective adaptation to the changes, and a better scientific understanding of the processes involved.

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.

Validation is crucial to the success of every satellite mission. Without validation, the ability to interpret satellite measurements for scientific studies is significantly hampered or, in some cases, rendered impossible. This is especially true for satellite missions that focus on questions of the carbon cycle.

The project's objectives are to improve atmospheric trace gas retrievals from a ground-based remote sensing observatory, and to perform scientific investigations of Canadian urban greenhouse gas emissions. By combining space-based and ground-based remote sensing measurements of greenhouse gases, project results will provide Canadians with scientific evidence upon which to base public policy regarding Canada's greenhouse gas emissions.

The geosynchronous global satellite industry is evolving a new generation of satellites to address needs of new satellite services including local-channel direct broadcast, high capacity K/Ka-band personal communication, and more, with flexibility to adjust coverage, capacity and frequency.

This project will design, build and test a compact Ka-Band RF subassembly, comprising 64 low loss filters, 64 Low Noise Amplifiers and distribution power network to be used in advanced payload for next evolution satellites.

This advanced beam shaping technology will become the backbone of a new product line to meet future needs of our customers.

Of interest to COMDEV are the flexible GEO satellite and constellations, both architectures having their advantages to serve Canadians. The proposed technology directly addresses the need of this service.

Optical Inter Satellite Links (OISL) transceiver is an optical transmitter and receiver, converting the incoming/outgoing optical signals to extract/transmit data to/from other satellites and earth.

To date Radio Frequency has been used as primary transmission media in space, however, moving to optical data transfer benefits in speed, security, higher data rates, lower power consumption and reduction of satellite physical footprint.

The project is to validate achievement of TRL 6 of an OISL transceiver, based on a selected Commercial Off The Shelf transceiver (TRL 4), suitable for application on a LEO-type satellite, in conjunction with the Optical Head Unit to enable data transmission.

This transceiver will be demonstrated in a laboratory environment.

Canada stands to benefit from all the current effort to develop OISL products.

The project will demonstrate that a pointing mirror can be used to simultaneously reduce the detection threshold, increase coverage and increase capacity of the Wide Angle Fabry-Perot (WAF-P) spectrometer.
The project will define requirements, develop a design, then build and test an engineering model of the pointing mirror. The project builds on strong heritage from GHGSat for the WAF-PI, ABB for the pointing mirror, and Xiphos for onboard processors and related software. If successful, GHGSat intends to fly the pointing mirror as an experimental payload on one of its constellation mission satellites.

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.