About CUBICS
CUBICS is a Canadian Space Agency (CSA) initiative that provides professors in post-secondary institutions with an opportunity to engage their students in an end-to-end space mission adapted to their needs and their level of comfort, expertise and readiness. Selected teams will have the unique opportunity to design, build, test, launch and operate their own miniature satellite called a CubeSat.
Selected teams
The announcement of opportunity for CUBICS was posted in . In , the CSA announced the selection of the winning proposals and awarded nine grants representing $3.15 million over three years to Canadian post-secondary institutions to advance space science and technology while training the next generation of space experts. All projects selected in this round aim to help increase scientific knowledge to better understand climate change.
A list of the supported projects and their respective funding amounts is presented below.
| Institution | Grant value | Project |
|---|---|---|
| University of Alberta Edmonton, Alberta |
$348,700 | Ex-Alta 3: Measuring ice and snow coverage |
| Concordia University Montreal, Quebec |
$350,000 | SC-FREYR: Integrating AI for satellite image processing and improving performance and robustness of CubeSats |
| Dalhousie University Halifax, Nova Scotia |
$349,740 | STEM engagement through satellite development and observations |
| University of Manitoba Winnipeg, Manitoba |
$349,992 | IceCube: Making space accessible for Arctic climate change research |
| McMaster University Hamilton, Ontario |
$350,000 | PRESET: A CubeSat mission for spectrometry of charged particles |
| Memorial University of Newfoundland St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador |
$350,000 | Killick-2: A CubeSat for ocean monitoring in support of climate change adaptation |
| University of Saskatchewan Saskatoon, Saskatchewan |
$350,000 | RADSAT-SK2: New radiation mitigating technologies for computer hardware in space |
| Western University London, Ontario |
$350,000 | The Western Skylark: a 3U CubeSat for next-generation tracking of migratory wildlife using the Motus and ICARUS telemetry systems |
| University of Victoria Victoria, British Columbia |
$349,600 | SKYA'ANAsat: Space-based Earth, oceans and atmosphere imaging CubeSat |
Nine teams will be offered the unique opportunity to build and launch their own miniature satellite called a CubeSat. (Credit: CSA)
Collaboration with industry
Space exploration is a collaborative endeavour, and the contribution of different stakeholders is one of the pillars of a successful space mission no matter the scale. The CSA encourages organizations (industry, not-for-profit organizations, etc.) to contribute in different roles to the students' CubeSat missions.
To enable this collaboration, the CSA invites organizations interested in supporting the CUBICS teams to provide the following information to stim-stem@asc-csa.gc.ca: name of the organization, services and/or goods provided, website, nature of support the organization is interested in offering to the teams, name and email address of a contact point.
We will be pleased to build a database and share it with the CUBICS teams, who are fully responsible for designing, building, testing and operating their CubeSat.
Please note that the CSA does not endorse any organization and will not be responsible for the information provided by the organizations to the CUBICS teams.
Contact us
Should you have any questions regarding this initiative, contact us at stim-stem@asc-csa.gc.ca.