Canadian moon rover floated in plans for national space agency

An all-Canadian moon rover is just one project being considered as the head of the Canadian Space Agency puts the final touches on a long-term plan to chart its future course.

Steve MacLean, who took over the Quebec-based agency last September, has spent the past few months consulting with industry, academics and government departments. It's part of a global exploration strategy that involves the world's 11 space-faring nations.

MacLean's space plan was due in November but now may not be ready before this February.

The agency's last long-term space plan dates back to 1994.

But that hasn't stopped two Canadian companies that have been working on designs and testing parts for a lunar rover.

Two Canadian astronauts, Julie Payette and Bob Thirsk, have also been busy preparing for visits to the International Space Station in 2009.

Payette is tentatively scheduled to blast off on her space mission aboard U.S. space shuttle Endeavour in mid-May, while Thirsk's six-month visit is to begin May 27.

Thirsk will travel to the space station from Russia aboard a Soyuz spacecraft.

Iain Christie, the head of Ottawa-based Neptec Design Group, says the Canadian lunar rover is a major project which the space agency has been looking at.

Neptec builds laser cameras that are used to scan U.S. space shuttles for damage while in orbit.

"We have done a concept study for the Canadian Space Agency of a rover that Neptec would provide the vision and system integration for, while a number of other companies would provide other pieces," Christie told The Canadian Press.

He said COM DEV International Ltd. of Cambridge, Ont., would handle communications and data payloads, while Ontario Drive and Gear of New Hamburg, Ont., would work on the mobility of the lunar rover. Ontario Drive and Gear builds all-terrain and amphibious vehicles.

McGill University would contribute designs for a number of parts, including its wheels.

Christie said Neptec's TriDAR vision system has already been successfully tested on Earth using an American-built rover in a dormant crater in Hawaii. The unmanned rover was put together by Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.

Neptec's vision system was also used during the testing to help CSA scientists remotely select sites for lunar drilling.

Leading-edge expertise

Gilles Leclerc, the CSA's director-general of space technologies, points out that many Canadian companies have leading-edge expertise that could be used for future planetary missions.

One such company is NORCAT of Sudbury, Ont., the developer of a lunar drill that was also tested in Hawaii.

"NORCAT has robotic systems which they provide for the mining environment," Leclerc said.

"It's not that different from some of the requirements that might be needed for drilling on the moon or Mars."

MacDonald, Dettwiller and Associates of Richmond, B.C., better known as MDA, is also working on its own proposed lunar rover.

Philip Murphy, MDA's vice-president of government affairs, says he wasn't familiar with the specific details of its proposal.

"We've got all sorts of different robotics ideas floating around," he said in an interview.

He wants the Canadian Space Agency to continue in the niches it has carved out for itself, such as robotics.

Murphy noted it was 25 years ago that Ottawa invested in MDA's Canadarm "and the economic returns and prestige it gives Canada have been incalculable."

MDA was also the prime contractor for the $37-million weather station on the Phoenix Mars Lander, which landed at the planet's northern pole in May 2008. It transmitted weather reports from Mars while another instrument detected snowflakes falling from the clouds over the red planet.

Canadian memento

The mission ended, as expected, in the chill of a Martian winter in November. But the weather station, the size of a shoe box, also left behind a Canadian memento.

The word "Canada" capped with a small Maple Leaf flag was branded on a thermal blanket that was wrapped around the weather station.

MDA also built Dextre, a two-armed, $200-million mobile robot that was sent to the space station in March 2008.

The 3.7-metre robot performs exterior construction and tasks such as changing batteries and handling experiments outside the station.

MDA's space division was almost sold to a U.S.-based company in 2008, but the Harper government stepped in to block the sale.

"In a funny kind of way, it's certainly raised the profile of our company and raised the profile of the space industry in Canada," Murphy said.

"It made people realize we build satellites and these satellites are important for a country as vast as Canada for communications and remote sensing."

Gathering information

Satellites are used to gather information on the Earth's surface, oceans and the atmosphere and also for communications and navigation.

But John Keating, the president of COM DEV, says Canada has to do some catching up to do.

"The amount Canada has been spending on space is anemic compared to other space-faring nations," he said in an interview. "I think Canada ranks at the bottom or close to the bottom."

The agency's annual budget of $300 million has remained unchanged for several years.

Keating's advice to MacLean is to try to get Canada's spending more in line with other countries.

Former CSA president Marc Garneau, now a Liberal MP and the party's critic for science and technology, says successive Harper governments have turned their backs on the space industry.

"It was only when MDA was possibly going to be sold to U.S. interests that suddenly the Conservative government woke up and realized it had to pay attention to the industry," Garneau said.

"All other countries are moving foward and being quite aggressive in space.

"The Canadian Space Agency unfortunately is having to deal with static resources, which effectively means you're going backwards."