Canada's Role in the Developement of Space Technology

Canada has contributed to the development of space technology in many different ways. This section of the site describes Canada's role in the development of space technology. It includes:

How it has contributed to the International Space Station

Alouette

RADARSAT

 

International Space Station

In 1982 Canada was invited to participate in a proposed US-led space station program. Europe (European Space Agency) and Japan (NASDA) were also invited to join. The National Research Council of Canada (NRC) commissioned a study of the country's industrial and research capacity to participate in ISS construction and utilization. Based on the finding of that study, Canada made a formal decision to join the program in 1984.

The partners in the ISS: Canada, U.S., Russia, 11 European countries and Japan.

Canada's Space Station Program will contribute the Mobile Servicing System (MSS) to the ISS. The MSS consists of equipment and facilities located both on the space station and on the ground.

CANADA'S SPACE STATION PROGRAM - FACILITIES AND EQUIPMENT
Facility	Use
On-Orbit Facilities
Canadarm2, the Space Station Remote Manipulator System (SSRMS)	Sophisticated space "arm" used to assemble and maintain the ISS.
Mobile Remote Servicer Base System (MBS)	A mobile base that allows SSRMS to be relocated to different locations on the ISS.
Special Purpose Dexterous Manipulator (SPDM)	A sophisticated "space hand" (actually two fingers) used to manipulate objects in space and conduct maintenance and repairs.
Canadian Space Vision System (CSVS)	Used to precisely locate objects in the vicinity of ISS and to support SSRMS when it is manipulating large objects.
Ground-Based Facilities
Mission Operations Complex (MOC) including:	Main facility for mission planning, equipment monitoring, and training.
Space Operations Support Centre (SOSC)	Supports ISS missions that utilize SSRMS, SPDM, MBS, and CSVS.
MSS Simulation Facility	Plans missions.
Operations Kinematic Simulator	Simulates operations of the MSS.
Canadian MSS Training Facility (CMTF)	Trains astronauts, cosmonauts and mission controllers.

Alouette

Alouette was Canada's first satellite. Canada became the third country to have a satellite in orbit, after the Soviet Union and U.S., when Alouette was launched on Spetember 29, 1962.

Alouette was an atmospheric studies satellite. Canadian scientists had been studying the ionosphere, an electrically charged layer of the atmosphere, from the Earth for many years. At this time, before communications satellites, radio signals could be transmitted over long distances by boucing them off the ionosphere. But communicating this way is unreliable because the signals are often disrupted when the aurora borealis, also known as the Northern Lights, occur. To learn more about this, scientists needed to probe the ionosphere from above as well as below. This was the purpose of Alouette.

To begin with, Alouette was going to be an instrument package that would ride on an American satellite. At the suggestion of Dr. John Chapman from the Defence Research Telecommunications Establishment, however, Alouette became a full-blown Canadian satellite.

Everyone expected that Alouette would only last 1 year but it kept sending down information about the ionosphere for 10 years. Alouette provided more than 1 million images of the top of the ionosphere. On January 22, 1987, the Engineering Centennial Board Inc. recognized Alouette as one of the 10 most outstanding achievements of Canadian engineering throughout the last 100 years.

RADARSAT

RADARSAT is Canada's first series of remote sensing satellites. RADARSAT-1 was launched on Nov. 5 1995 and RADARSAT is to be launched in 2004. The main use for these satellites is to provide unique information about Earth's surface through most weather conditions and even in darkness.

To provide this information the satellites focus on using radar sensors. RADARSAT uses Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR), which is an active picrowave sensor. This allows 24h data collection independent of weather conditions and illumination.The SAR sensor uses a 5.6 cm wavelength which is known as the C-band, has a HH polarization and has selective viewing angles that allow a wide range of terrain conditions, applications and ground coverage requirements to be accommodated. Immaging models for RADARSAT include Wide, ScanSar, Fine, Extended and Standard Beams.