The Canadian Space Commerce Association (CSCA) will be holding its annual meeting on March 18th in Toronto and my colleagues and I have assembled a great group of speakers to discuss the theme of this years event which is "The Next Breakthrough Space Technologies for Canada".
Registration is still open but seats are limited. Besides the great speakers, we'll have a great panel discussion on our theme.
The space sector in Canada is not stable. Although revenues surpassed $3 billion in 2009 for the first time and the government boosted the Canadian Space Agency budget through $110 million in stimulus money, there are warning signs that things are not well with the commercial space sector.
Just yesterday SpaceRef Canada released a report by gour of Canada's top companies are critical of R&D funding. And last week, MDA, Canada's largest space company said in analysts call when reporting Q4 earnings for 2010 "We do not see a Canadian long-term space plan anywhere, and we are precluded from working in the United States except for small projects", yet another signal across the governments bow that it is not pleased.
So how is Canada to move forward in these murky waters? Well, the CSCA meeting should prove useful in discussing many of the issues.