Monday, August 11, 2014

Hadfield in Emirates, Russia in Lather & UrtheCast in Orbit!

          by Chuck Black

It's been a busy week for the Canadian space industry with a retired astronaut sourcing out middle east space contracts, Russia threatening additional economic sanctions to "keep the country's space and rocket industry afloat" and Earth imaging company UrtheCast finally offering up Earth images of our home and native land.

Hadfield abroad. Photo c/o Donald Weber / Crown Prince Court/ Abu Dhabi
Here are a few of the items currently being tracked by the Commercial Space blog:
Russian president Putin pointing. Photo c/o Wikipedia.
  • Of course, some national governments aren't quite so pleased with recent Canadian activities and among these would be the Russian government under president Vladimir Putin, which last week banned food imports from nations which had previously instituted sanctions over Russian activities in the Ukraine. As outlined in the August 7th, 2014 CBC news article, "Russia sanctions show Putin's 'short-sighted desperation,' Canada says," the fast expanding trade war now includes meat, fish, milk, fruit and vegetables from Canada, the US and the European Union. Even worse for the Canadian space industry, as outlined in the August 7th, 2014 RIA Novosti article "Russia to Draft Import Substitution Program for Space Industry," the Russian government is crafting an "import substitution plan" to find domestic replacements for technology imports expected to be lost by Russia as a result of trade sanctions. Of course, there is no current word on how this new plan would affect possible Canadian aerospace activities in Russia although, as outlined in the July 31st, 2014 Space News article "MDA Satellite Exports Feeling the Effects of Canada’s Tough Stance on Russia," Canadian firms are already being affected by sanctions. As covered in the April 28th, 2014 post "M3Msat and the Politics of Dancing in the Crimea," the Canadian government  decided "not to proceed" with the planned June 2014 launch of a Canadian micro-sat, from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, in protest over Russian actions in the Ukraine. 

Winnipeg, as seen from the ISS. Photo c/o UrtheCast.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Support our Patreon Page