Marc Boucher

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• Commented on Buzz Says Send English Speakers to Mars

  Shhh, don't let anyone know about Canada. It's a secret ;-)...

• Posted Veteran Astronaut Chris Hadfield Selected as Space Station Expedition 35 Commander to SpaceRef Canada

  The Honourable Gary Goodyear, Minister of State (Science and Technology) announced today at the Canadian Space Agency headquarters that veteran astronaut Chris Hadfield will be Canada's first Commander of the International Space Station and only the second Canadian astronaut to...

• Posted Canadian Space Agency to Announce Milestone Astronaut Mission Tomorrow to SpaceRef Canada

  The Canadian Space Agency announced this morning that they will hold a press conference tomorrow to announce an important mission for one of Canada's astronauts. It is expected that the Canadian Space Agency will announce that veteran Canadian astronaut Chris...

• Posted Armadillo Aerospace and Masten Space Systems win NASA Experimental Space Vehicle Contracts to NASA Watch

  NASA Selects Two Firms for Experimental Space Vehicle Test Flights, NASA (with video) "NASA's Commercial Reusable Suborbital Research Program (CRuSR) has awarded a total of approximately $475,000 to Armadillo Aerospace of Rockwall, Texas and Masten Space Systems of Mojave, Calif....

• Posted The CSA Issues RADARSAT Next Generation Options Study for the Department of Defence to SpaceRef Canada

  Today the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) issued through the tender service MERX a request for two separate firms to carry out a study on the RADARSAT Next Generation Options Study. The primary objective of the study work is to perform...

• Posted Canada's Housing Bubble, Real or Imaginary? to Nano2Sol by Marc Boucher

  The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives yesterday released a study title "Canada's Housing Bubble - An Accident Waiting to Happen" in which they state that "for the first time in 30 years, six of Canada's hottest real estate markets are...

• Posted India back to the Moon in 2013 with Orbiter, Lander and Rover to NASA Watch

  India Announces Instrument Suite for Chandrayaan-2 Moon Orbiter, Lander and Rover, SpaceRef "The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) today announced the suite of instruments for its second mission to the moon after it's first orbiter Chandrayaan-1 was successful in its...

• Posted SpaceX Asks Requests October 23rd as Potential Launch Date for Falcon 9 with Dragon to NASA Watch

  SpaceX Asks For Oct. 23 Dragon Launch Slot, Aviation Week "Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) has requested Oct. 23 on the 45th Space Wing's calendar for launch of its second Falcon 9 rocket, which will aim to place a Dragon cargo...

• Posted Public Invited to Participate on Cool NASA Historical Project to NASA Watch

  NASA, Internet Archive and Flickr Launch Historic Image Collection, NASA "Visitors to NASA on The Commons can help tell the photos' story by adding tags, or keywords, to the images to identify objects and people. In addition, viewers can communicate...

• Posted Do China's Actions Signal a Greater Military Role for their Space Program? to Nano2Sol by Marc Boucher

  Brian Weeden of the Secure World Foundation has a very interesting article on The Space Review titled Dancing in the dark: The orbital rendezvous of SJ-12 and SJ-06F which details the apparent on-orbit rendezvous of two Chinese satellites. "The rendezvous...

• Posted New Image of Mars's Mysterious Elongated Crater to SpaceRef

  Orcus Patera is an enigmatic elliptical depression near Mars's equator, in the eastern hemisphere of the planet. Located between the volcanoes of Elysium Mons and Olympus Mons, its formation remains a mystery. A new image from the High Resolution Stereo...

• Commented on This Week in Space for Canada

  I think this topic has been discussed enough here. It was one portion of Chuck's article. I will moderate comments and remove any I find that violate the SpaceRef terms of use....

• Commented on This Week in Space for Canada

  BTW Wikipedia is not always a credible source and should not be relied on for legal advice. You want the law on copyright? Then visit each countries copyright law section from their respective government web sites....

• Commented on This Week in Space for Canada

  With respect to "Fair Use" once again you are wrong. If content has an explicit copyright notice in place, and in particular since this was an image, Catherine had no right to use it without permission. Regardless of how well...

• Commented on This Week in Space for Canada

  Sorry Raj you are wrong when it comes to copyright. You state: "There are several factors that work against your claim of copyright infringement, the primary one is the "Fair Use Doctrine" and given the fact that your work is...

• Posted Dextre's final exam - l'examen final de Dextre to SpaceRef Canada

  See the steps of Dextre's final exam. Working from his perch on the end of Canadarm2, Dextre will close in on his target, unbolt the first circuit breaker and remove it. He will then back up slightly to give himself...

• Posted Agence spatiale canadienne entrevue avec Mathieu Caron to SpaceRef Canada

  Entrevue avec Mathieu Caron, Dextre Contrôleur de vol. Dextre est le robot le plus perfectionné jamais construit selon l'agence spatiale canadienne. Il est d'effectuer des travaux courants d'entretien et de réparation, comme le changement de batteries et le remplacement de...

• Posted Canadian Space Agency Interview Leslie with Sponder Dextre Operations Engineer and Mission Planner to SpaceRef Canada

  Leslie Sponder is an Operations Engineer and Mission Planner who works with the Special Purpose Dexterous Manipulator, or as it is better know as, Dextre. Dextre is the most sophisticated space robot ever built according to the Canadian Space Agency....

• Posted Agence spatiale canadienne entrevue avec Serge Gaudreau to SpaceRef Canada

  Entrevue avec Serge Gaudreau, Dextre Concepteur principal de systèmes didactiques. Dextre est le robot le plus perfectionné jamais construit selon l'agence spatiale canadienne. Il est d'effectuer des travaux courants d'entretien et de réparation, comme le changement de batteries et le...

• Posted Canadian Space Agency Interview with Daniel Lefebvre, Dextre Systems Engineer to SpaceRef Canada

  Daniel Lefebvre is a Staff Systems Engineer who works with the Special Purpose Dexterous Manipulator, or as it is better know as, Dextre. Dextre is the most sophisticated space robot ever built according to the Canadian Space Agency. It is...

• Posted Space Agencies Unite for Mars Missions to SpaceRef Canada

  NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Canadian Space Agency have joined to share resources and expertise on three future science missions to Mars. In three separate robotic missions (the first in 2016), both agencies will study the possibility...

• Posted Canadian Space Agency to Contribute to 2016 ExoMars Mission to SpaceRef Canada

  Canadians will once again be at the forefront of the ongoing exploration of Mars as it was announced yesterday by the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) that they would be contributing to ExoMars mission. Canada's contribution will be the shared development...

• Posted Space Elevator Conference Less Than 2 Weeks Away to The Space Elevator Reference

  This years Space Elevator Conference being held at Microsoft headquarters in Redmond, Washington will begin on Friday, August 13th and run through Sunday August 15th. A free public lecture by Dr. Bryan Laubscher will precede the conference on Thursday, August...

• Posted University of Toronto Built Nanosatellite Launched by India's PSLV-C15 Rocket to SpaceRef Canada

  The Automatic Identification System Satellite 1 (AISSat-1) built by the Space Flight Laboratory (SFL) at the University of Toronto Institute for Aerospace Studies (UTIAS) was successfully launched on July 12th onboard the Indian PSLV-C15 rocket. The satellite was part of...

• Posted The Tight Reins and Muzzling of the Canadian Space Agency by the Government to SpaceRef Canada

  The Conservative Government of Stephen Harper, which governs as if it had a majority because of weak opposition, is notorious for controlling information disseminated to the public. This extends to every public agency including the Canadian Space Agency (CSA), much...

• Posted Amazon Unleashes Cluster Compute Instances for High Performance Computing to Nano2Sol by Marc Boucher

  I have to say I'm fairly excited at the news today that Amazon is making available a new instance type for Amazon's Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) service called Cluster Compute Instances. Specifically designed for high performance computing (HPC) applications, I...

• Posted Canadian Space Summit Call for Papers and Registration Opens to SpaceRef Canada

  Recently the Canadian Space Society announced the Call for Papers for the upcoming Canadian Space Summit. The summit is an annual conference that brings together all elements of the Canadian space industry. The annual meeting is being held between November...

• Posted The Future Direction of Royal Astronomical Society of Canada (Podcast) to SpaceRef Canada

  The Royal Astronomical Society of Canada (RASC) recently held its annual general assembly in Fredericton between July 1-4. One key event at the general assembly was an open forum and panel discussion titled "Boldly Navigating Where no one has Gone...

• Commented on The Canadian Space Agency on Twitter

  Because that hash tag is already used for other things. So if used it could get confused with other notifications. Hence why we are looking for something else. Also note that there can be no hyphen in a hash tag...

• Posted A Night Dive in Pavilion Lake, British Columbia to SpaceRef Canada

  From researcher Dale Andersen: "During the PLRP field season of 2009, Dr. Ian Hawes and I made several night dives. Here you can see Ian exploring the microbialites, searching for grazers such as amphipods and snails that might have an...