Canada In Space

On this weeks podcast my guest is James Slifierz, CEO of SkyWatch. James got his start in winning the NASA global SpaceApps Challenge in 2014. He then went on to create SkyWatch to take that initial software idea and develop it into a commercial product. In 2016 his company took the lead in organizing the SpaceApps Challenge for the Waterloo Region. Last year they brought on board the Canadian Space Agency as a partner. Today SkyWatch announced that after a little over 3 1/2 years after winning NASA’s global SpaceApps Challenge and starting the company, they've closed their seed financing, raising US$3.2M.

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My guest this week is Pekka Larila, Chief Financial Officer and co-founder of ICEYE.ICEYE is a Finnish company with offices in Poland and the U.S. that bills itself as having the first Synthetic Aperture Radar, or SAR, satellite in a microsatellite form weighing in at less than 100kg.By comparison traditional SART satellites are much larger needing a lot of power to accomplish their mission. The well known Canadian RADARSAT-2 satellite weighs in at 2200kg and the next-generation RADARSAT Constellation Mission satellites each weigh in at 1400kg.ICEYE is looking to disrupt the traditional Synthetic Aperture Radar satellite market.

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My guest this week is Chris Carberry, the CEO and co-founder of Explore Mars.Explore Mars is a non-profit that brings aerospace business leaders together with government entities, mediating and facilitating the direct flow of information, and was incorporated in February 2010. Prior to working at Explore Mars, Chris was the Executive Director of the Mars Society for almost two years.In today's show we discussed the ongoing effort for a human mission to Mars and how Explore Mars is bringing organizations together around the world to achieve that goal.

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Happy New Year and welcome to the first SpaceQ podcast of 2018. My guest this week is Andrew Jones, a journalist based in Finland who follows China's space program. He writes for gbtimes.com, and has written guest blogs for the Planetary Society as well for SpaceNews.In this weeks podcast Andrew and I are going to delve into China's space program which has set an ambitious schedule of possibly launching more than 40 rockets this year.

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This week on the SpaceQ podcast we're doing something a little different. Instead of interviewing a guest we decided to playback a speech we recorded from the recent Canadian Space Summit held in Ottawa by Canadian Space Agency president Sylvain Laporte. In this speech, Mr. Laporte discusses what he calls “key messages” of the space program from the governments perspective.Please note that this is the last podcast of the year and we’ll return with a new show on Thursday, January 11. From the growing team at SpaceQ, we wish you and your families all the best this holiday season and a Happy New Year.

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My guest this week is Michelle Mendes, the Executive Director and President of the Canadian Space Commerce Association.The Canadian Space Commerce Association is a not-for-profit organization founded in 2007 that describes itself as the national association for the space sector, representing industry, academia, professionals, young entrepreneurs and students. Michelle is also a member of the independent Space Advisory Board created by the government to provide ongoing input on Canada’s space sector.Today we’ll be talking about satellites, in particular how technology and miniaturization of components has allowed researchers and companies to build much smaller and less costly satellites for a variety of tasks including earth observation. We’re using these small satellites for farming, monitoring our climate, disaster response, ship tracking and more.Next February 13 -15 in Toronto the Association will be holding its second Canadian SmallSat Symposium. The first conference was held in February 2016 and was sold out. The Association is hoping to attract upwards of 400 people for the coming event.

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My guest this week is Larry Reeves, the founder of the Canadian Satellite Design Challenge. At the recent Canadian Space Society Space Summit I ran into Larry and asked him if he would like to be a guest on the show to talk about this program and provide an update on the current competition.The CSDC is a Canada-wide competition for teams of university students, undergraduate and graduate, to design and build a small satellite. To be clear, this is a competition where the students create their own team at their respective university. It is not a university led program. They do get some guidance from professors at their institutions. Students must also raise funds to build their satellites.The CSDC is in its 4th competition having completed 3 previous competitions since its inception in 2011. Larry and a core group of volunteers manage the CSDC in their spare time with some support from industry and the Canadian Space Agency. Larry’s day job is that of an engineer at the Earth Observation company UrtheCast.

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Today’s show was recorded at the Canadian Space Society’s annual Space Summit in Ottawa on November 21st. Among the keynote speakers invited by the Canadian Space Society are usually two from outside Canada.I spoke with Dr. Kazuya Yoshida of Tohoku University in Japan.Dr. Yoshida is also a Director and Chief Technology Officer of iSpace, a Japanese New Space startup with ambitions to use the moons resources, water to start, to develop a lunar economic base. iSpace also manages the Japanese Google Lunar X Prize entry, Hakuto.Dr. Yoshida is a robotics expert and has served as the Director of the Centre of Robotics for Extreme and Uncertain Environments at Tohoku University. He has worked for many years on Japanese robotic missions including the asteroid sample return mission Hayabusa. The technology and rovers developed at his lab at Tohoku University have also been used in disaster response.Dr. Yoshida and his colleagues at Tohoku University are also developing what he calls “Cliff Hanger” and “Rock Climber” robotic machines designed for future asteroid exploration and which could also be used on the moon.Dr. Yoshida and his colleagues have developed a rich knowledge base in microsatellite and rover technology development.As you’ll hear, iSpace is looking beyond the Google Lunar X Prize and will announce its first round of equity venture funding in the near future.

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Today on SpaceQ I’ll be talking with Dr. Michael Daly, Associate Professor at York University. We’ll be talking about the international, though NASA led, Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer mission, or as it’s commonly called, OSIRIS-REx.The OSIRIS-REx spacecraft will rendezvous with near-Earth asteroid Bennu next August where it will conduct a series of science investigations including returning a sample to Earth to be analyzed. NASA says the mission will help scientists investigate how planets formed and how life began, as well as improve our understanding of asteroids that could impact Earth.The OSIRIS-REx spacecraft launched on September 8, 2016. Canada is participating in the mission by providing the OSIRIS-REx Laser Altimeter or OLA, which will create a 3-D map of asteroid Bennu’s shape along with helping with navigation.Dr. Daly is the principal Investigator of the Canadian Science Team. York University’s Planetary Exploration Instrumentation Laboratory is the lead university for the Canadian OLA instrument contribution. While York University is taking the OLA instrumentation lead, other Canadian contributors include the University of Calgary, the University of British Columbia, the University of Winnipeg, the University of Toronto and the Royal Ontario Museum.The mission to asteroid Bennu will continue until March 2021 when the spacecraft will return to Earth arriving 2 1/2 years later in September 2023. At that point the sample return capsule will return to Utah where it will be collected and analyzed.

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My guest is Ryan Anderson. It’s Ryan’s second time on the show having been my guest on Episode 8. Ryan’s back to provide an update on the Satellite Canada Innovation Network which wasn’t selected as a finalist by the government in the Innovation Superclusters Initiative.No matter, Satellite Canada is moving forward anyway. Ryan will also talk about next weeks Canadian Space Summit in Ottawa, for which he’s the chair.

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