Spaceq

Hi, I’m Marc Boucher and this is a special edition of the SpaceQ podcast. In this podcast from the CASI ASTRO 18 conference in Quebec City, you’ll hear an in-depth discussion of Canada’s current military space component, its capabilities and what the future holds. The moderator for this discussion is Jacques Giroux of ABB who is also the incoming president of CASI. The panelists in order of who you’ll here from, are; Brigadier-General Kevin G. Whale, Lieutenant Colonel Catherine Marchetti and Colonel Cameron Stoltz.The presentation referenced during the talk is available from our website. For more podcasts and stories from CASI ASTRO 18, go to spaceq.ca/tag/astro-2018. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Hi, I’m Marc Boucher and this is a special edition of the SpaceQ podcast. In this podcast recorded at the CASI ASTRO 18 conference in Quebec City, you’ll hear from Brigadier-General Kevin G. Whale, Director General & Component Commander - Space.Canada’s military space component is set to grow significantly going forward both in terms of personnel and capability. General Whale provide a status update on the space component he leads, and tell explain how our defence forces are preparing for the challenges of the future.CASI ASTRO 18 Storieshttp://spaceq.ca/tag/astro-2018/ See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Hi, I’m Marc Boucher and this is a special edition of the SpaceQ podcast. In this podcast from the CASI ASTRO 18 conference in Quebec City, you’ll hear an update from four Canadian Space Agency Director Generals including and in order of their speaking, Jean-Claude Piedboeuf, Director General Space Science and Technology, Eric Laliberte, Director General Space Utilization, Gilles Leclerc, Director General Space Exploration and Mary Preville, Director General, Policy.The presentation used for this panel is available on our website at spaceq.ca/podcast. For all our stories from CASI ASTRO 18 go to spaceq.ca/tag/astro-2018. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

My guest this week is Joe Cassady and today we’re going to talk about the 2018 Humans to Mars Report which was released last week at the Humans to Mars Summit. The report reinforces a notional date of 2033 for the first Humans to Mars mission. There also seems to be a convergence happening within the Mars community, both within government and the commercial sector, that the pieces needed to make a mission happen by 2033 can be ready.Joe is the Executive Vice President and a Director at Explore Mars who published the report and organized the annual summit. I should note that his day job though, is that of Executive Director, Space at Aerojet Rocketdyne. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

My guest this week is Rafael Jorda Siquier, CEO of Open Cosmos.Rafael and some of his colleagues had an idea 10 years ago to make space more accessible. To bring that idea to fruition took many years of schooling and then working in the industry. The result was the creation of Open Cosmos, a company dedicated to providing inexpensive space missions using small satellites in low earth orbit an eventually beyond low earth orbit. Not content to just build satellites, they offer an end-to-end service. From the satellite, to procuring the launch, arranging ground station access for data, and even making sure all the proper paperwork for whatever regulatory needs, are in place. The story of how Open Cosmos came to be, its philosophy, mission and success to date, are one all entrepreneurs and those wanting to create a new space company should hear. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

My guest this week is David Kendall, the Chair of the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space.David is a faculty member of the International Space University and was a Senior Executive at the Canadian Space Agency during his long career. While trained as a scientist, David has become an important leading expert on global space policy and law. Today we’re going to first discuss the current state of space policy in Canada followed by the global perspective. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

My guest this week is Kate Howells. Kate works at the Planetary Society as their Global Community Outreach Manager. In her role as Outreach Manager she has built up and manages a global network of volunteers who do educational outreach in their communities and develops volunteer activities that support the Planetary Society's goals and strategic vision.She is also a member of the government of Canada’s Space Advisory Board. In this interview we talk about the Planetary Society and its growth in Canada, space advocacy in Canada and her role as a member of the Space Advisory Board. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Three months into his new job as the Group President of MDA in Canada and Mike Greenley is very busy shaping the 49 year old company to the realities of today, including ways to spur growth in a tough domestic market.MDA, once the parent company of several business units in the U.S., is now one of four business units in the larger U.S. based Maxar Technologies which it created. The other business units are SSL, DigitalGlobe and Radiant Solutions.Being a player in the the defence and space sector in the U.S. brings unique challenges due to security issues. To grow the company MDA became Maxar.Greenley assumed his new role on January 15 of this year. Greenley is an industry veteran having worked 22 years at companies such as Greenley & Associates (his own company), CAE, General Dynamics and most recently L3 Technologies in Burlington, Ontario where he was Sector President.In this wide ranging interview, we discuss some of the changes Greenley has made since he came on board and the challenges in growing the

This week we’re doing something a little different and unplanned. On Friday, April 6 Western University in London, Ontario held its 4th annual Space Day.Western University is one of the leading planetary sciences universities in Canada, if not the best. The keynote speaker was former Canadian astronaut, Dr. Dave Williams.Williams first flew on two space shuttle missions, STS-90 in April of 1998 and then again on STS-118 in August 2007. He holds the Canadian cumulative long duration record for spacewalks. He is also the writer of several children books including, Go for Liftoff, To Burp or Not to Burp and this fall will have his first adult book published, Defying Limits: My Life as an Astronaut, Doctor, and Explorer.Williams is an excellent speaker and story teller. For that reason we decided to share his unedited speech in this weeks podcast. Enjoy. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

My guest this week is Lucy Stojak who is the Director of the School on Management of Creativity and Innovation at HEC Montréal. Lucy is also the Chair of the Space Advisory Board.It was just about a year ago that ISED Minister Bains announced the then 10 member Space Advisory Board. Last summer an additional member was added, Kate Howells, to represent the advocacy segment. I will note that that Board members are not employees of the government, serve on a voluntary basis and are not paid. All members work either in academia, industry, research, not-for-profit or in the case of Kate Howells, public outreach and advocacy. It’s been a very busy year for the Board so let me quickly recap it. According to the government when it announced in October 2016 that it was forming a new Space Advisory Board, the board would "advise the Government of Canada on long-term objectives for space and to engage with Canadians.”As soon as the Board was announced last April it began a cross-Canada in-person stakeholder consultat

My guests this week are two members of the AlbertSat team, Callie Lissinna and Logan Fairgrieve-Park.AlbertaSat is a student group started in 2010 made up of about 50 undergraduate and graduate students. The group was started as a result of the creation of the Canadian Satellite Design Challenge. The Canada wide competition encourages university students from different study areas to form a team to develop and build a nanosatellite, or CubeSat. It’s not just for science and technology students though, marketing, communication, financial and project management skillsets are also needed.Callie is the Deputy Project Manager and Logan is the Science Team Lead and the Attitude Determination and Control System Team Lead. Both are undergrad students at the university of Alberta.Callie, Logan and I discussed AlbertSat, its projects and their view of their future prospects of working in Canada in the space sector. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

This week our guest is Dale Boucher, CEO of Deltion Innovations. Deltion is one of the leading proponents for space mining and has worked with the Canadian Space Agency, NASA and others.Some of the questions Dale answers include:How is Deltion involved in space mining?Will Canada participate on a mission to test mining equipment on the moon or elsewhere?How mature or immature is the technology? Is anyone working on heavy mining machinery needed for the moon?Do we know where to begin mining operations on the moon?Are nations like Canada, a leader in mining, working on policy frameworks for mining on the moon or elsewhere? See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

My guest this week is Grant Bonin, Chief Technology Officer of Deep Space Industries.Deep Space Industries is a five year old privately held company spacecraft technology with a long term plan of mining asteroids that has adapted its business for the long game.At the time the company launched, some people wondered if the idea was crazy. It’s not, but it is hard, and It’s a long game. Deep Space industries (DSI) is still here and apparently has adapted its business plan to meet the challenge and has been working on developing technologies needed for its long term goals but which have commercial appeal now allowing them to generate revenue streams now.Since the company was formed they've sparsely released information. Last year when Daniel Faber, the CEO at the time, left the company, he said not too long afterwards that he was proud of having led the company to sales in the area of $10 million in 2016. That was really the first public acknowledgement of any sales volume.With DSI's products, most notably Comet,

My guest this week is Hassan Khan, CEO of Quantius and TodaQ.Is the Canadian venture capitalist landscape light years behind in understanding the space ecosystem in comparison with their U.S. counterparts? Will blockchain technology be as transformative as the Internet has been? These questions are answered in this weeks SpaceQ podcast.If you have a new space company or are staring one, then this podcast is one you won't want to miss. The same is true if you want a better understanding of blockchain technology and some of its uses for the space sector.Today Hassan and I will discuss two topics, venture funding and blockchain technology and cryptocurrency. We start talking about blockchain technology and cryptocurrency staring at the 31:34 mark.Quantius is an alternative lender with a unique capability to collateralize intangible assets for innovative enterprises in Canada and the United States. TodaQ Financial is a mobile financial services marketplace responsible for issuing, distribution and adoption of the

My guest this week is Michael Simpson, the Executive Director of the Secure Word Foundation, a U.S. based not-for-profit and former President of the International Space University.Michael was the opening keynote speaker at the recent Canadian SmallSat Symposium. His speech was on the sustainability of space. We explore that topic further. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

My guest this week is Mike Safyan, Senior Director, Launch and Global Ground Station Networks at Planet. Planet, previously known as Planet Labs, is an Earth Observation company which has launched a fleet over 200 satellites to monitor the Earth. This podcast was recorded at the Canadian SmallSat Symposium which was held last week in Toronto.Planet has become the largest operator of satellites in orbit with 148 active imaging satellites. It should be noted though, unlike the large school bus size satellites in geosynchronous orbit, nearly all of Planet’s satellites are microsatellites weighing in at under 100kg and roughly the size of a microwave oven and are in low earth orbit.Mike and I discussed recent news at Planet with an eye to the future, along with a discussion on their ongoing ground station problem in Canada which led them to announce at the Canadian SmallSat Symposium that they were going to pull out their ground stations in Inuvik after June 1 if they’re licensing issues aren’t resolved by Global

My guest this week is Adam Trumpour. Adam is a concept designer at Pratt & Whitney Canada by day, and a rocket developer by night.He develops liquid propellant rocket engines, occasionally consults on the subject and mentors student rocketry groups. Today we’re going to talk about launch vehicles, with an emphasis on small launch vehicles. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

On February 5, 2018, the day before the first attempt by SpaceX to launch the Falcon Heavy on its maiden flight, Elon Musk held a press conference at the Kennedy Space Center to answer questions from reporters. Here is the unedited Q&A.The launch window opens up at 1:30 p.m. EST and extends to 4:30 p.m. Currently the weather is favourable with a 80% probability of good launch conditions. Our listeners can watch the SpaceX webcast on SpaceRef and SpaceQ.Links:- Webcast http://spaceq.ca/spacex-live/ or http://spaceref.com/live/spacex-webcast.html See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

My guest this week is Chris Gebhardt, Assistant Managing Editor of NASASpaceflight.com. Chris and I talked about SpaceX, specifically the upcoming maiden flight of the SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket.The launch is scheduled for Tuesday, February 6 and this podcast was recorded the Sunday before. The launch window opens up at 1:30 p.m. EST and extends to 4:30 p.m. Currently the weather is favourable with a 80% probability of good launch conditions. Our listeners can watch the SpaceX webcast on SpaceRef and SpaceQ.Links:- NASA Spaceflight https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/- Chris Gebhardt on Twitter https://twitter.com/ChrisG_NSF- Webcast http://spaceq.ca/spacex-live/ or http://spaceref.com/live/spacex-webcast.html See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

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. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.