Canada Wants In On NASA's New Mars Rover

Thanks to more than $700,000 in federal grants from the Canadian Space Agency, two domestic contractors will be tasked with potentially piggy-backing on the NASA-led Mars 2020 program.

The contracts, open tenders to Canada's sizeable aerospace industry, were for four studies: two to investigate what Canada's overall contribution to the mission could be, and two to assess whether Canada can contribute a "Robotic Manipulator System" or a "High Gain Communication System."

The program appears to be part of the Ottawa's master plan to transform the CSA away from a bunch of pencil-pushing government rocket scientists, towards a body that connects Canadian industry with foreign space programs like NASA.

"The Canadian Space Strategy seeks to define a bold vision for Canada's future in Space," reads the tender. "Where Canadians, in a global partnership, work to harness the potential of space to advance scientific and technical knowledge of our world and the Universe beyond."

The key phrase in the government tender, however, is the CSA's noted goal of establishing: "effective cooperation between government, industry and research institutions in Canada."

Canadensys Aerospace Corporation, which was awarded one of the overall contribution contracts, says it plans on making the case that Canada should contribute a "next generation meteorological sensor package," according to the company press release.

That package comprises two parts: firstly, to analyze the cold Martian winds and then to study space dust.

Carlos Lange, professor at the University of Alberta and head of the science team for Canadensys' project, says that if the company installs its new wind sensors on the rover, it'll be the perfect showcase for the Canadian made space technologies.

"Not only Mars 2020, but every new mission to Mars will want to use the sonic anemometer wind sensor and non-contact optical dust sensor technologies," says Lange.

The Canadian-developed equipment is looking to compliment the hardware being built by NASA. Mars 2020 (which still lacks a cool name), will be riffing on the Curiosity mission. That rover was launched in 2011 and is still roaming around the red planet.

And, as if you need a reason to be excited about the next NASA project:Curiosity already has a penchant for tweeting GIFs of itself firing lasers at Mars rocks.

Also up in the heavens isOpportunity, which just broke the record for most distance travelled on the planet, and its companion,Spirit, which lost contact with NASA in 2011.

Between those two rovers, NASA has discovered that there may currently be water on Mars, that it may once have been habitable for life, and so much more.

But even with all those scientific contributions, Dr. Lange says there is room for improvements that his team can provide. "All the meteorological sensors that have been flown on past missions, such as the Viking Landers, Mars Pathfinder, the Phoenix Lander and the Curiosity Rover had severe limitations in their measurement ability," he said in the press release.

More money will almost certainly be forthcoming from the Canadian government, once the planned studies are completed. Two of the three contracts have already been awarded to British Columbia-based MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates (they're already contributing to an asteroid retrieval mission with NASA), with Toronto-based Canadensys awarded the other.

Ultimately, this Mars 2020 program may signal a renaissance for the CSA and the Canadian aerospace industry. Up until this year, it looked like the Harper Government was a little more terrestrial than its predecessors after the Agency was slashed with budget cuts.

In 2012, the Harper Government passed down some considerable cuts to the CSA, amid accusations that they were bungling a high-tech observation satellite program. But that cut didn't appear to be permanent, as Ottawa boosted their budget considerably the following year. The main estimates for 2014-2015 has the Agency's funding pegged at over $460 million—a sizeable increase from years prior.

With the public success of commander Chris Hadfield and several key funding announcements from Canadian ministers, space really is becoming a buzz word for the Harper government. Now, the Mars mission might just be the next big thing for the CSA.