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WASHINGTON – NASA and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) have finalized an agreement on Canada’s participation in the Artemis program, which includes taking a Canadian astronaut on a mission around the moon in 2023.
The agreement, announced by the two agencies on December 16, confirms that Canada will provide the Canadarm3 robotic arm for the lunar gateway. It will also provide interfaces for the Gateway modules to allow the arm to move outside the Gateway to install payloads and perform maintenance.
A commercial logistics spacecraft will deliver Canadarm3 to the lunar gateway in 2026. SpaceX received a contract from NASA in March to transport cargo to the station using a version of its Dragon spacecraft called the Dragon XL.
Canada, in turn, will get two seats in future Artemis missions. One will be on Artemis 2, the first crewed flight of the Orion spacecraft scheduled for 2023, which will fly around the moon. The second will be a mission to the Moon Portal at an unspecified later date.
Getting a seat on Artemis 2, which is expected to be the first manned mission beyond Earth orbit since Apollo 17 in 1972, was a point of particular pride for Canadian officials. “This will make Canada the second country, after the United States, to have astronauts in deep space,” said Navdeep Bains, Canadian minister of innovation, science and industry, during a press conference announcing the agreement between the NASA and CSA.
Canadian officials said they have not selected which of their four current astronauts will fly on Artemis 2 or the subsequent Gateway mission. “Canada is fortunate to have a strong corps of highly trained professional astronauts, any of whom would be an excellent fit,” said CSA President Lisa Campbell. A decision will be made for Artemis 2 closer to launch, but he did not give a specific timeline.
NASA has also not made crew assignments for Artemis 2 or subsequent missions. The agency announced on December 9 an “Artemis Team” of 18 NASA astronauts who would be eligible for subsequent flight assignments. Andrea Matte, a spokesperson for the Canadian Space Agency, said after the press conference that Canadian astronauts selected for those missions would join Team Artemis.
In a statement from NASA, Administrator Jim Bridenstine noted that Canada’s commitment to the Artemis program dates back to the February 2019 announcement that it would develop Canadarm3 for Gateway. “Canada was the first international partner to commit to advancing the Gateway in early 2019, they signed the Artemis Accords in October and we are now excited to formalize this partnership for lunar exploration,” he said.
Canadian officials used the announcement to also discuss progress on Canadarm3. CSA awarded a contract on December 8 to MDA, the Canadian company whose space robotics expertise includes the original Canadarm from the shuttle era and the Canadarm2 on the International Space Station, to begin Phase A technical studies of Canadarm3. The new arm will be similar to the Canadarm2, but will incorporate artificial intelligence technologies to support operations when no one is at the Gateway.
The four active astronauts from Canada, Jeremy Hansen, Joshua Kutryk, David Saint-Jacques and Jenni Sidey-Gibbons, spoke at the briefing and all said they were excited about the prospect of flying an Artemis mission. Flight opportunities for Canadian astronauts in general are rare, as it is the smallest of the ISS’s five major partners. Of the four, only Saint-Jacques has flown into space so far.
“The international body here in Houston is very excited, I’ll say it today, by the prospect of these missions,” Kutryk said. “We are all particularly inspired at this time in a way that I hope all Canadians can feel inspired.”
When asked if he thought he’d ever get a chance to go to the moon, Hansen noted that he became an astronaut in 2009, when NASA was still implementing the Constellation program to send humans to the moon, but that the new effort offered a “tremendous opportunity” for Canada. “I’m excited that a Canadian will be in Artemis 2,” he said. “We are paving the way for Canadians to do even more in space – eventually, hopefully, one day a Canadian on the Moon and on Mars.”
