Grants and Contributions

Host the 2025 'Unscripted' Digital Arts Festival in Twillingate

Undertake exhibit improvements and building upgrades to enhance visitor experience

Hire expertise to develop product platform

Purchase automated commercial scale bakery equipment.

Enhance the Bird Island Puffin Site in Elliston to improve visitor experience and safety

Development of a customized automated palletizer

CSMC is actively developing Canada’s only space Micro Modular Reactor (MMR) — the Low Enriched Uranium Nuclear Reactor (“LEUNR”) — a flagship capability to help establish Canada’s international leadership in an increasingly strategic and competitive domain for space nuclear. The proposed work seeks to validate the conceptual performance of the reactor through representative, unfueled testing on CSMC’s analog reactor, and inform CSMC’s work to raise LEUNR’s readiness from its TRL 4/5 Conceptual Design to a TRL 6 Detailed Design by the end of the project. Commercial space activities have been growing rapidly for the past decade as space agencies, militaries, and private entities race towards long-duration missions, lunar bases, and Mars exploration. CSMC’s LEUNR MMR represents a singularly compelling solution to address the renewed and urgent need to develop modular, safe, and scalable fission solutions for space.

Rocket Lab Toronto is a prime global manufacturer of new-space reaction wheels with 1500+ units sold to 70+ spacecraft manufacturing companies around the world. However, all current products are suited for satellites smaller than 400 kg and not suitable for medium-sized telecommunication missions in low-earth or higher orbits which in recent years have seen a significant increase in demand.

Through design and development of a reaction wheel with larger angular momentum capacity under this project, Rocket Lab’s Toronto division will expand its reaction wheel products reach to a much larger market and new applications. It will be able to supply the Canadian sovereign telecommunication constellation needs that are currently reliant on foreign products. Rocket Lab’s “careful COTS” low-cost approach is based on research, selection, and testing of commercial components and qualifying them for severe rocket and space environments. This project benefits Canada strategically by providing it with a sovereign product. It will also add high paying jobs and bring millions of dollars of international revenue to the country.

Spaceflight produces deleterious effects on multiple physiological systems (e.g., cardiovascular, cardiorespiratory, and postural controls) with astronauts in isolation and confinement (IC) in a microgravity environment. IC studies conducted on the ISS and the ground generally demonstrated altered neuro-immunomodulated responses, whose mechanisms may be related to chronic stress dysregulating the central nervous system (CNS). However, the effects of IC on CNS insult and multi-omic responses are yet to be investigated. The research team proposes to analyze datasets of previous flight experiments from NASA’s OSDR and Vivaldi 1 & 2 transcriptomic data from dry immersion analogue study. They aim to generate new knowledge and understanding of human spaceflight risks associated with CNS dysfunctions and contribute to evidence-based, prophylactic countermeasure development to mitigate the adverse risks associated with current spaceflight. Moreover, this research aims to translate this understanding to improve the health of Canadians on Earth who may be affected by related adverse effects.

Recent findings suggest that the venous thromboembolisms (VTE) may occur during spaceflight. Jugular vein thrombosis is rarely reported on Earth, but is associated with relatively poor outcomes. Therefore, there is a need to evaluate the upper body venous system, and the effects of microgravity on venous blood flow, blood viscosity, vessel distension, and inflammation. It is also necessary to provide a better description of the molecular mechanisms by assessing how blood clotting genes are differentially expressed under microgravity. To this end, the proposed research will 1) identify jugular vein status and coagulation changes in spaceflight analogue of dry immersion and bed rest by analysis of blood samples, and 2) investigate the molecular mechanisms that underlie the risk of VTEs by assessing the genes associated with coagulation. The outcome of this project would be a better understanding of the potential underlying mechanisms of VTEs in spaceflight.