Canada’s first lunar rover looks to future space exploration

In a shopping square at an hour outside Toronto, flanked by a day spa and a Shawarma joint, there is a two -story building with blue tinted windows reflecting the summer sun.

This is the modest headquarters of Aerospace de Canadensys, where Canada tracks its first trip to the Moon.

Canadensys is developing the very first Canadian rover to explore the only natural earth satellite, in what will be the first planetary exploration company led by Canada.

Models, maps and outdoor space posters line the office walls, while engineers wearing antistatic coats work on unknown machines.

The sending of this rover on the moon is part of the “wider strategy of the company to really go beyond the humanity of the earth,” said Dr. Christian Sallaberger, president and chief executive officer of Canadensys, to the BBC.

Learning the Moon – which is considered to have the potential to become a basis for a new exploration of space – is the “first logical step,” he said.

“People are all enthusiastic about science fiction films when they go out. You know, Star Wars or Star Trek. It’s the real thing.”

The Canadian vehicle is part of the NASA Artemis program, which aims to establish a lasting human presence on the Moon.

As part of this primordial objective, this rover aims to find water and measure the levels of radiation on the lunar surface in the preparation of future inhabited missions, and to survive several lunar nights (equivalent to around 14 days on earth).

The rover will also demonstrate Canadian technology, based on Canada’s history in space.

Canada was a third country to launch a satellite, designed Canadarm robotic weapons for space shuttle and the international space station, and is known for its astronauts such as Chris Hadfield and Jeremy Hansen – the latter who will orbit the Moon on the Artemis II mission next year.

The 35 kg rover should be launched as part of a NASA initiative in 2029 at the earliest. It will land on the southern polar region of the moon – one of the most inhospitable places on the lunar surface.

The vehicle has no name yet. The Canadian Space Agency has organized an online competition to select one and should announce the winner in the future.

Canadensys is currently working on several Rover prototypes. The last vehicle, said Sallaberger, would be assembled shortly before the launch.

Each component is tested to ensure that it can survive the difficult conditions of the Moon.

Temperature is one of the main obstacles. Lunar nights can fall to -200c (-328f) and reach a hot day of 100 ° C (212F).

“It is one of the biggest engineering challenges we have, because it does not even survive at cold temperature, but swinging between very cold and very hot,” he said.

The design of the wheels is another challenge, because the surface of the moon is covered with a sticky layer of rock and fragmented dust called regoliths.

“The dirt of the earth, if you look at it under a microscope, has been altered. It is more or less in round shape; but on the moon, the floor of lunar dirt is all shredded,” said Sallaberger.

“It’s like velcro dirt,” he said, noting “just gum mechanisms”.

The search for water on the lunar surface is particularly exciting, since the moon was generally considered to be bone dry following the Apollo missions in the 1960s and 70s, the American human flight program led by NASA.

This perception changed in 2008, Dr. Gordon Osinski, the chief scientist of the mission, told the BBC, when the researchers reanalyzed certain Apollo mission samples and found water particles.

Around the same time, space trades observing the Moon detected its presence of orbit.

It has not yet been checked on the ground and many questions remain, said the professor of Western University in London, Ontario.

“Is it like a plot of ice the size of this table? The size of a hockey rink? Most people think, as in the Arctic, it probably looks more like ice grains mixed with the ground,” he said.

Water on the Moon could have enormous implications for more sustainable exploration. He noted one of the heaviest things they need to transport is often water, so having a potential supply there.

Water molecules can also be broken down to obtain hydrogen, which is used in rocket fuel. Osinski has described a future where the moon could become a kind of service station for spacecrafts.

“It becomes more in the kingdoms of science fiction,” he said.

Canada wants to build a lunar surface vehicle for decades, with a speech on a Canadian manufacturing space, even in the early 2000s – but it was only in 2019 that concrete plans were announced.

Canadensys obtained the $ 4.7 million CA contract ($ 3.4 million; 2.5 million pounds sterling) three years later.

Founded in 2013, Canadensys worked on a variety of aerospace projects for organizations like NASA and Canadian Space Agency, as well as commercial customers.

More than 20 instruments built by the company have been used in a multitude of missions on the Moon.

But there are challenges to come – because even landing on the moon is not an easy task.

In March, a spaceship of the commercial company of intuitive machines reversed its side during landing, ending the mission prematurely.

Three months later, the resilience of the Japanese company Ispace lost contact with the land during its landing and finally failed.

“This is the nature of the company in which we are,” said Sallaberger. “Things go wrong and we try to do our best to mitigate this.”

Spatial exploration has been a collaborative field over the years, with countries – even rivals, such as the United States and Russia – working together on the International Space Station.

But that could change, said Osinski. While the prospect of a permanent presence on the moon becomes more realistic, wider geopolitical questions have started to swirl around the property of the satellite.

“There are more discussions on whom the moon has and space resources,” said Osinski.

In 2021, the United States adopted a law to protect the landing site of Apollo Moon “because it had the concern that China could simply take the American flag, or take a piece of an Apollo Lander,” he said.

But he had encouraging words on Artemis missions, which are “even much more international than the space station”.

The Artemis Accords, which is a set of ideals to promote the sustainable and peaceful exploration of space, has been signed by more than 50 countries – including such as Uruguay, Estonia and Rwanda, which are not traditionally considered as key spaces of space.

The space also becomes more accessible. Private companies like SpaceX and Blue Origin have played an increasingly important role and are able to take anyone with money and barely no training – like the founder of Amazon Jeff Bezos and the Pop Star Katy Perry – in space for a few minutes.

But the Moon is the Holy Grail, because it opens all kinds of possibilities.

Mr. Sallaberger said Canadensys were involved in longer -term projects, such as lunar greenhouses for food production.

These are still many years in the future, but the rover is a starting point.

“If you conceive something that can survive long -term on the lunar surface, you are enough to test the balls elsewhere in the solar system.”