By Elizabeth Howell,
Ottawa Business Journal Staff
Wed, Mar 11, 2009 4:00 PM EST
A trio of recently inked agreements with the Canadian Space Agency will help local aerospace firm Neptec push its research into the emerging generation of space technologies, according to Jason Di Tommaso, the firm's vice-president of global marketing and strategic development.
"We're very excited about working on these three new contracts, which are all concept studies, and we are of the opinion that some very new and exciting technologies will derive from these contracts," said Mr. Di Tommaso, who assumed his position on Tuesday.
He was light on details about the studies, but said it would build upon the laser technology Neptec is known for using in space for activities such as scanning the shuttle's belly for broken tiles. In space, lasers are typically used to judge distance – handy for such activities as landing, docking with another spacecraft or catching a satellite for repair.
The contracts will be for three missions scheduled to fly in the next decade:
A proposed NASA-led Mars sample return mission, which would bring some Martian soil and rock back to Earth using robotic systems;
The Japanese SELENE2 mission, a rover that will be able to analyze lunar rocks and what lies below the moon's surface;
A NASA excavation lunar rover that will also be able to analyze rocks remotely.
Neptec is also looking to expand its toehold into the defence industry, Mr. Di Tommaso added. The ability to see through obscure conditions would be as useful to soldiers as it is to astronauts.
"For example, using our technologies — and once they become more mature — we believe we will be able to let pilots fly through obscurants such as brownout or fogout conditions," he says. "That would have defence importance as well as eventually commercial importance."