Mission Control Space Services, a Canadian space exploration and robotics company, just received $1.16 million from the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) to join the global gold rush of moon missions.
NASA’s growing Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program is meant to give small companies the chance to join the forthcoming Artemis program that will send astronauts to the moon. The idea is to have rovers, landers and scientific payloads accompanying the astronauts during lunar excursions. The young Joe Biden administration has committed to continuing the Trump-era Artemis program, although it is unclear if Biden still plans to put boots on the moon by 2024.
CSA’s technology development funding for Mission Control is part of its Lunar Exploration Accelerator Program (LEAP) that is part of Canada’s contribution to Moon exploration, along with the Canadarm3 robotic arm that will fly to NASA’s Gateway space station later this decade, if all goes to plan. LEAP will potentially allow Mission Control to participate in CLPS, along with other Canadian companies under the CSA program.
“This [funding] is critical support from the Canadian government to help companies like ours participate in the first wave of commercial exploration,” Ewan Reid, CEO of Mission Control, said in an interview. “It’s so important because if we’re not in that first wave in the first couple of years, I think a major opportunity would have been lost, and it would be difficult to catch up later. It gives us a seat at the table in terms of setting international norms and policies.”
The goal is to create a product for future lunar flights – an adaptable flight computer that could be installed on lunar spacecraft for managing data. Reid said there is a challenge in flying multiple payloads to the surface at the same time, to make sure that they are sending and receiving data as planned and not interfering with each other in their work.
The money will go to his team to perform research and development, to engage with companies around the world who are going to the Moon, and to ensure that the product Mission Control creates has the right solutions for multiple customers, Reid said.
“We will create a product, an off-the-shelf payload computer, to enable the intelligent passing of data from the payloads to the lander and back to Earth. We’ll integrate that either in the payload software or on the lander, whatever is more efficient.”
He added he is appreciative of the CSA supporting this work at an early stage of development; otherwise, it would be difficult to find external financial backing given the young market the moon presents. The new product does build on previous Mission Control software expertise; they currently have a cloud-based ground control solution that uses similar competencies.
CSA will not end up with the right to use the technology, but their financial support will show that Mission Control’s product has been through “a vetting process” from a large government representative, Reid said. Such support will allow Mission Control to show prospective customers that the Canadian government believes in the technology and has supported it through an investment – a process that he says will, with any luck, help close deals with new clients.
Beyond the benefits to Mission Control, Reid said that this contract will help the company achieve one of the key objectives of the Canadian space strategy, which is to inspire the next generation of engineers, scientists and other people working in technical fields related to space exploration.
He said he hopes that Canadian youth will be inspired by saying that Canadian computers and Canadian technologies are being used on the moon to support international exploration, rather than “look at all the other countries exploring the Moon.”
The contract calls for a system-wide demonstration in a mission scenario at the company’s indoor lunar test facility, situated in Ottawa, in 2022. Assuming success with the demonstration and with customer recruitment, the first missions with the system could run as early as 2023.