A revolution in Canada’s mission to planet Earth

Fifty-two years ago in 1969, humans first set foot upon the moon on the Apollo 11 mission. When Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the lunar surface, they looked back at the Earth and saw a fragile blue marble against the darkness of space. This compelling perspective of our planet was hugely influential. It is not a coincidence that the first Earth Day took place less than a year later in 1970. Of the 50 essential climate variables identified by the World Meteorological Organization as needed to monitor climate change, 26 of them can only be effectively observed from space. Canada’s Space Strategy calls for collecting climate change data under the pillar of ensuring our nation’s leadership in acquiring and using space-based data to support science excellence, innovation, and economic growth. For decades, the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) has been leading Canada’s mission to planet Earth with a number of instruments and satellites that provide crucial environmental data. An instrument called MOPITT monitors carbon monoxide in the lower atmosphere, while another instrument called OSIRIS measures ozone in the stratosphere. A satellite called SCISAT-1 records the vertical distribution of ozone, nitrogen dioxide, water vapour, and aerosols in the atmosphere, and three generations of RADARSAT satellites have been monitoring the surface of the Earth since 1995. In the last decade, there has been a revolution in the space industry. Hundreds of satellites, each the size of a milk carton, image the entire surface of the Earth every day. Million-dollar satellites the size of a microwave oven can now do much of the work of billion-dollar satellites the size of a school bus. And much of this is being done by entrepreneurs rather than space agencies. For example, a Canadian company called Wyvern is developing a trio of nanosatellites with hyperspectral sensors that will capture images of the Earth in wavelengths beyond the perception of the human eye. Another Canadian company called 4pi Lab is planning a satellite constellation that will provide early warning of wildfires. Commercial Earth observation systems do not replace CSA’s flagship missions but are instead complementary, enabling cost-effective and novel capabilities that would otherwise not be possible with either a private- or public-sector solution alone. Like the pale blue dot witnessed by the Apollo astronauts, it is the goal of GHGSat to create a compelling perspective for the future our planet. GHGSat’s satellites are currently the only ones in the world designed to measure greenhouse gas emissions from individual facilities, enabling stakeholders in the energy, resource, power generation, agricultural, waste management, and sustainability sectors to make informed environmental decisions. When we launched a technology demonstration satellite called Claire in 2016, everyone thought we were crazy. “This is hard,” they said. Well, it worked. We took everything we learned from our demonstration satellite and applied it to our commercial satellites. Our first commercial satellite, named Iris, was launched last September, and our latest satellite, Hugo, was launched this January. Our satellites are named for the children of our employees, as a reminder of the importance of our work for future generations. By finding emission sources worldwide, we have already directly contributed to greenhouse gas reductions equivalent to planting more than 50 million trees. Canada’s commercial satellite remote sensing companies stand ready to support our national climate change obligations under the Paris Agreement and the Canadian Net-Zero Emissions Accountability Act. For this to happen, the government of Canada must do its part. For years, Canada’s space industry has called for the federal government to buy data from Canadian satellites as an anchor customer. This is common practice in other countries. The government of Canada must commit to ongoing bulk purchases of Earth observation data and analytics as an anchor customer. Not only will this provide government departments such as Environment and Climate Change Canada and Natural Resources Canada with satellite data to support their mandates, it will also increase export opportunities because one of the first things a prospective international customer asks is whether a product or service has been adopted by the domestic market. The anchor-customer approach for satellite data has been successfully implemented by other governments through initiatives such as the NASA Commercial Small Satellite Data Acquisition program and the Earthnet program of the European Space Agency (GHGSat is under assessment as an ESA Earthnet Third-Party Mission). This November, Canada and the world will gather for COP26, the 26th United Nations Climate Change Conference, to accelerate action towards the goals of the Paris Agreement. With the support of the European Commission and the International Energy Agency, the UN Environment Program is establishing the International Methane Emissions Observatory (IMEO) as an independent multilateral mechanism for collecting and verifying methane emissions data. The European Commission is seeking international contributions to the IMEO, specifically in the area of satellite capabilities as part of a detection and alerting system to identify “super emitters” and provide actionable data for diplomatic follow-up. A commitment by the government of Canada to provide Canadian-sourced methane satellite data to the IMEO in time for COP26 would be a valuable and highly-visible demonstration of Canada’s commitment to the Paris Agreement. More than half a century ago, the challenges of the Cold War resulted in a mission to the moon. Today, the challenges of post-pandemic recovery and the industrial transition to greener and more sustainable practices are driving a revolutionary mission to planet Earth. Let’s bring the revolution in space to the service of humanity. Canadian space technology can play a vital role in creating new perspectives, fighting climate change, and building back better. Stéphane Germain is chief executive officer of GHGSat Inc. The Hill Times

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A revolution in Canada’s mission to planet Earth

Canada’s commercial satellite remote sensing companies stand ready to support our national climate change obligations. For this to happen, the government of Canada must do its part.

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