Canada
2016 – Workforce
The global space industry employs hundreds of thousands of individuals in well-paid cutting-edge technology jobs, and it relies on a pool of highly qualified workers to fill new jobs as they arise. Trends among this workforce, including . . .
2016 – Government Space Budgets – Snapshot
Total global government space budgets in 2016 were $## billion, a ##% decrease from $## billion in 2015.
2016 – Canada: Sapphire and NEOSSat – Snapshot
Two low Earth orbiting Canadian satellites, Sapphire and NEOSSat, provided spaceborne space situational awareness (SSA) for Canada during 2016. While they are both SSA satellites, they fulfill different SSA missions. Sapphire, a Canadian Department of National Defence (DND) satellite launched in 2013, is a part of the Canadian Space…
2016 – International Space Station – Snapshot
During 2016, the International Space Station (ISS) continued to be the primary inhabited space laboratory orbiting the Earth. An international contingent of scientists, engineers, and researchers used the ISS for various microgravity-based experiments.
One ISS program, NASA’s human research One-Year Mission, required astronaut…
2016 – Economy: Space Economy
The global space industry continued to grow in 2015, although currency fluctuations caused the appearance of a slight decline . . .
2015 – Canada: Sapphire and NEOSSat – Snapshot
Canadian SSA operations are conducted using two satellites: Sapphire and NEOSSat. The Canadian Department of National Defence (DND) uses Sapphire, which moves around the Earth in a sun-synchronous orbit to detect the reflections of other objects in space. It entered its five-year operational phase in early 2014, monitoring thousands of space objects every 24 hours in 2015. Data collected from Sapphire is shared with the U.S. Space Surveillance Network.
2015 – Canadian Government Space Budget – Snapshot
In FY 2015, which extends from April 1, 2015 to March 31, 2016, the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) budget was C$483.4 (US$387.5 million). This is an increase of 27.6% over FY 2014 funding.
2015 – Government Space Budgets – Snapshot
Total global government space budgets in 2015 were $76.516 billion, a 4.8% decrease from $80.415 billion in 2014. More than half of this spending was in the United States, which budgeted $44.567 billion for government space activities in 2015. Government budget levels reflect the most recent budgetary information available for each country, taking into account the fact…
2015 – Satellite Communications – Snapshot
Operators of communication satellites lease satellite capacity to satellite broadcasting companies, making the provision of these services possible. For example, DISH Network accounted for nearly a third of Hughes Network’s total revenue in 2015. Satellite communications also include two-way data, voice, and video connections. Revenues for the satellite communications segment in 2015 were…
2015 – International Space Station (ISS) – Snapshot
In 2015, the ISS was the only inhabited space station orbiting the Earth. By July 2015, an international cadre of 220 men and women had temporarily lived aboard the ISS as builders, scientists, and explorers since people first entered the station in November 2000. The crew aboard the ISS continued conducting research in a microgravity environment, as well as observing the impacts of long-term habitation in space on the human body during 2015.