MDA Space will “repurpose” its microgravity robot-arm tech for lunar surface operations—likely supporting the NASA-led Moon Base—after the US space agency put the OG plans for Gateway on hold.
The Canadian company’s investments into Canadarm3—originally intended to operate in lunar microgravity—will focus on “future logistics activities on the lunar surface,” Canada announced late Thursday. The change is supported by MDA Space, which is working on the tech under a $1B CDN ($720M) contract with the Canadian government.
The move comes as little surprise after ESA and Northrop Grumman shifted some of their own Gateway projects to new lunar applications in recent weeks.
Change of phase: NASA announced it was pausing the Gateway lunar space station March 24—just one week before CSA Astronaut Jeremy Hansen flew to the Moon on Artemis II using a seat essentially paid for by Canadarm3’s contract.
At the time, MDA emphasized to investors that the Canadarm3 CSA contract was continuing. Then on Friday during a Q2 conference call, CEO Mike Greenley said Canada’s Moon work will continue “full steam ahead” with the tech pivot.
The scope of MDA’s contract remains unchanged, despite the new focus. Teams will “continue to work on their designs and development, but the use of those designs and developments is the thing that’s going through the adjustment,” Greenley said.
Moonrise: Canadarm3 fueled MDA’s robotics division in Q2 to generate $99.5M CDN ($71.4M), up 13% from last year and representing a fifth of quarterly revenues. But Canada isn’t MDA’s only lunarside client.
- The company’s UK division received a pre-authorization-to-proceed contract in June from OHB, relating to lunar landing sensors for the ESA Argonaut Moon spacecraft.
- MDA Space is a member of the Lunar Outpost-led consortium competing to create an Artemis astronaut rover. (You can see what the rover looks like in Lego format.)
- Greenley added Friday the company is “engaged” with potential customers for Moon opportunities spanning landing, rover development, lunar transportation, logistics, and communications.
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The time for talk is over. After seven months of negotiations, officials from the European Commission, ESA, EUSPA, and SpaceRISE—the latter being a consortium of SES, Eutelsat, and HispaSat—have agreed to move into the implementation phase of IRIS2.
The agreement also dramatically increases the scope of the constellation. While IRIS2 was expected to include 290 satellites with a €10.55B ($12.1B) price tag, the constellation will now have at least 348 sats—330 in LEO and 18 in MEO—and cost ~€15.6B ($17.95B).
Division of labor: Europe’s major satellite operators have outlined their tasks for the years ahead:
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