Canada supports start-up to monitor space debris and potential collisions



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  • Canada partners with a young Big Data company to launch a satellite system to monitor potentially hazardous space debris.
  • The government outsourcing branch has reached an agreement with NorthStar Earth and Space, a company that hopes to harness artificial intelligence and data badysis to accurately predict potential collisions with debris and other objects in the world. 'space.
  • The project is generating interest, in part because of growing concern over the dangers to satellites of 600,000 floating debris estimated floating in the Earth's orbit.
  • Experts predict that a "new space" economy will be worth more than $ 1 trillion a year.
  • Read more stories like this on Business Insider

PARIS (Reuters) – The Canadian government's outsourcing industry is backing a proposed new satellite system, which will use big data badytics to provide market-based data about the Earth and its orbit against growing concerns over related risks. space debris.

Support from the Canadian Commercial Corporation (CCC) will allow Canadian start-up NorthStar Earth and Space to negotiate initial service agreements with the United States, Britain and other countries, said Stewart Bain , CEO of NorthStar. The agreement with CCC will be signed Monday at the Paris Air Show.

Mr Bain spoke of the strong interest of the international community in the project, given the increasing levels of activity in space, and growing concern about the dangers to satellites of about 600,000 floating debris on the Earth's orbit.

The United States and other governments are already collecting such data, but the demand for commercially available information in near real time is growing rapidly, with experts predicting a "new space" economy worth more than 1 trillion dollars a year.

"This agreement puts us in a strong position to work with the United States, the United Kingdom and other countries to provide our services," Bain told Reuters, noting that the Canadian government and government Quebec had already invested $ 13 million to date.

Telesystem Space Inc., of Montreal, the majority shareholder, and the European Space Alliance, which was formed by Telespazio and Thales Alenia Space, are a private investor in the project. This partnership is a partnership formed by French Thales and Italian Leonardo.

The system proposed by NorthStar provides for the launch in 2021 of a new constellation of small satellites that will use a set of hyperspectral, infrared and optical sensors to continuously monitor and badyze ecosystems and the orbit of the Earth.

The company said its system would use Big Data Analytics and Artificial Intelligence to understand the huge amount of information and accurately predict potential collisions with debris and other objects in space, while contributing to validation and improvement of the performance of existing monitoring systems.

US Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross, who will attend this week's Paris Airshow, said last week that he was encouraging all countries organizing space activities to work together on common issues such as space debris that could Stifle the marketing of space.

"Partnerships are important in a world where there are different perspectives on the future of space," he said.

The anti-satellite tests conducted by China in 2007 and, more recently, by India in March, cast doubt on the long-term viability of space operations essential to a wide range of activities, including banking and GPS.

(Report by Andrea Shalal, edited by Mark Potter)

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