Grants and Contributions

The AISES (American Indian Science and Engineering Society) team at the University of Waterloo is designing, testing, and fabricating a rocket that will fly to 2000 ft above ground level, then deploy a lander that will parachute back to the ground. The lander will carry a GPS/tracking system and a camera, which will provide a video recording of the landing. The rocket and payload will be designed to meet all requirements outlined by the “First Nations Launch (FNL) Moon Challenge” for the 2023-24 competition. The competition will be held in Wisconsin, where the team will work with and compete against other Indigenous student teams from across Turtle Island. Participating in this competition will help team members gain experience with collaboration, teamwork, and the application of technical skills to real-world space projects.

The Q-AISES Rocket team will compete in the NASA First Nations Launch (FNL) high powered rocketry competition, hosted by the Wisconsin Space Grant Consortium (WSGC). The team is comprised of Indigenous student members of the university’s chapter of AISES (American Indian Science and Engineering Society), which is an organization that encourages and supports Indigenous engagement with study and careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields. This project offers the opportunity for Indigenous engineering and science students at Queen's University to become involved with a hands-on experiential learning project with tangible outcomes. Students come from a range of programs such as Engineering, Physics, Astrophysics, Computer Science, Health Science, Biology and Education. The team will be competing in the Mars challenge in which they will be designing, testing, and fabricating a rocket that will deploy a drone with a fabricated retractable payload at apogee. The drone will descend under parachute until it reaches 400 ft above ground level (AGL), whereat the drone parachute will release, and a TRUST-certified drone pilot will pilot the drone to a predetermined landing zone. The team also conducts educational outreach visits with Indigenous and Black youth to promote an interest in rocket science and STEM more broadly. During these visits, the team introduces rocketry through a hands-on experience, launching low-powered model rockets to 500 feet. This outreach also gives youth exposure to proximate-age Indigenous role models who are studying in STEM fields and accomplishing great things through their involvement with NASA's First Nations Launch.

This project is intended to validate a portable technology based on surface plasmon resonance and passively pumped microfluidic techniques for disease screening in mobile clinics, remote regions and in space. We will also train a generation of scientists capable of meeting the challenges of remote site health care. The research proposed in this project will lead to multiple benefits for Canada, including the availability of disease detection technology that works in remote communities, the strengthening of Canada's position as a leader in the development of space technologies, and the contribution to the development of commercial activities in this sector in Canada.

The second goal is to foster the creation of highly qualified Canadian personnel by providing an end-to-end space-like mission for students to acquire hands-on experience with space sector technologies. The key advantage of PEPPER-X to Canadians is the strengthening of Canada’s national position in the global space economy.

The main objective of the project is to investigate metal-fuel combustion using a microgravity platform on board of the Falcon-20 parabolic aircraft, where the effects of particle settling, and natural convection are suppressed. Through this microgravity research, critical understanding on metal flame combustion can be achieved by investigating its propagation limit, and the understanding is improved with complementary ground-based research that examine additional parameters, such as burning velocity, flame temperature, and combustion products. In the present project, it is expected that new unique characteristics of metal combustion will be discovered through examining a wide range of fuel concentrations in at least two different particle size distributions. Metal-fuel combustion technologies are also essential in transition to a carbon-free society in Canada through using metal powders as sustainable carbon-free energy carriers.

This project will leverage Canadian expertise to develop new methods to identify and characterize novel loud gravitational-wave transients and mitigate LISA (Laser Interferometer Space Antenna) mission detector glitches. Canadian researchers will integrate these new methods into an existing “global fit” of many simultaneous expected LISA sources, allowing researchers from around the world to clearly observe the physical signatures of LISA sources. This project will enable Canadian researchers to take a leading role in LISA’s new view of the Universe. The Canadian public will gain a series of public resources to engage students and the general public in this exciting science.

This project seeks to advance bioprinting technology for space applications, focusing on wound healing in microgravity. This dual-purpose initiative aims to improve astronauts' health while providing immediate treatment for severe burns. The main objectives include experimental analysis of bio printed skin in a developed microgravity simulator, utilizing computational modeling to simulate multilayer skin properties, and integrating AI-driven topology optimization algorithms in bioprinting for enhanced precision. Building upon existing knowledge in space tissue bioprinting, the project pioneers immediate medical applications in microgravity.

The goal of this project is to better constrain the formation of clay minerals on Mars through Mars analogue missions deployed at three clay-bearing terrestrial field sites with two comparable EMRF (ExoMars Rosalind Franklin rover mission) instruments. This project aims to provide insights into further development and validation of these instruments and train the next generation of planetary explorers. The objectives of this work are to provide additional inputs into the design and validation of the instrument “Enfys” – the newly funded spectrometer replacing the former Russian ISEM instrument, to develop mission procedures and protocols tailored for identifying and characterizing clays with Enfys with PanCam (Panoramic Camera), and to determine if the mineral/spectral characteristics of clays collected from different geologic settings are sufficiently distinct to differentiate between different clay-formation scenarios. The analogue missions will be executed at three field sites: one meteorite impact, a volcanic site and one surface weathering site.

The purpose of this funding is to support the University of Saskatchewan 2024 Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) Workshop for Indigenous Girls in Saskatchewan in collaboration with the CNSC and other supporting organizations

To encourage the sustainable management of Canada’s fisheries, Indigenous fisheries programs, aquaculture activities and support commercial fishing harbours.