April 2010 Archives

"And there you have it, the Great Canadian Handshake," then astronaut Steve MacLean said over a scratchy radio from space back in 2006 after using the Canadarm2 on the International Space Station (ISS) to grasp 16 tonnes of machinery handed to him by a second Canadarm on the space shuttle Atlantis.

On May 11th the House of Commons Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology will meet a delegation of astronauts led by former astronaut and current Canadian Space Agency (CSA) president Steve MacLean.

The Advanced Plant Experiments on Orbit (APEX-CSA2) white spruce seedlings have sprouted some new shoots! This time-lapse video shows a close-up of the trees in their incubator on board the International Space Station over a six-day period. The new growth appears as light-green and orange buds that unfurl into fresh needles towards the end of the video. The seedlings will continue to grow in space until early May, when they will be harvested for their return to Earth on board Space Shuttle mission STS-132.

The Canadian Space Agency yesterday issued a request for proposals for a $6 million Mars Exploration Science Rover (MESR) prototype as part of their Exploration Surface Mobility (ESM) program. The due date for proposals is June 8 and work must be completed by the end of December 2012.

There's no news this week in space for Canada, at least until we absorb and assess the comments and whispered gossip coming out of last weeks Canadian Space Agency Workshop on Suborbital Platforms and Nanosatellites, but there's lots of stuff going on elsewhere and this week we're going to inventory some of those stories.

Cassini scientists waited years for the right conditions to produce the first movie that shows lightning on another planet -- Saturn.

Air Force One touched down at 1:24 p.m. (EDT) today at NASA's Kennedy Space Center (KSC) carrying President Barack Obama and dignitaries for a short visit to explain and push his vision of NASA's transformation. At the same time he came to reassure KSC workers that there would be some jobs and retraining money available. After a brief visit around KSC including a guided tour by SpaceX founder Elon Musk of his private company's facilities and launch pad where the Falcon 9 awaits its maiden voyage next month, the President then traveled to the Operations and Checkout building to speak to the highly vetted audience.

This week in space for Canada is all about the contrast between the generally positive business and industry reaction to the changes underway within the American space program, the silence these very same changes seem to be eliciting from within the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) and about what the CSA might need to do to stay on top of the situation.

A British National Space Centre (BNSC) feature on CryoSat-2. CryoSat-2 will determine variations in the thickness of floating sea-ice so that seasonal and inter-annual variations can be detected. The satellite will also survey the surface of continental ice sheets to detect small elevation changes. Information on precise variations in ice thickness will further our understanding of the relationship between ice and climate change. As a cooperating member of ESA, the Canadian Space Agency is contributing to ESA's Earth Observation Envelope Programme and therefore is participating in the mission.

The European Space Agency's (ESA) CryoSat-2 earth observation satellite was successfully launched yesterday from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on a Russian Dnepr rocket. As a cooperating member of ESA, the Canadian Space Agency is contributing to ESA's Earth Observation Envelope Programme and therefore is participating in the mission.

You know it's a quiet mission when the journalists are more focused on milestones than the missile just launched. An hour after the near-flawless dawn flight to space by shuttle Discovery on April 5, the reporters on site talked about this fourth-last flight of the program, that record number of women in space, and the two Japanese meeting face to face for the first time.

The federal government on March 25th released the 2010-2011 Canadian Space Agency (CSA) Report on Plans and Priorities. The report indicates that in anticipation of Cabinet and Treasury Board approval of the Long Term Space Plan (LTSP), a reorganization is underway. The much anticipated 10 year LTSP would begin to be implemented this year as soon as the government approves the plan.

The seven-member STS-131 crew headed to the International Space Station aboard space shuttle Discovery after its launch from NASA's Kennedy Space Center at 6:21 a.m. EDT. The liftoff came 45 minutes before sunrise Monday, Apr. 5, and lit up Florida's Space Coast sky. The STS-131 Commander is Alan Poindexter; Jim Dutton is the Pilot and the Mission Specialists are Rick Mastracchio, Dottie Metcalf-Lindenburger, Stephanie Wilson, Clay Anderson and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Naoko Yamazaki. Dutton, Lindenburger and Yamazaki are making their first spaceflights.