2024 Was a Busy Year for Canadensys, Builder of Canada’s First Lunar Rover

2024 was a banner year for Canadensys Aerospace Corporation, the Canadian space systems company headquartered in Bolton, Ontario.

A case in point: Canadensys and its team of subcontractors are busy building Canada’ first lunar rover, under contract to the Government of Canada and the Canadian Space Agency, for deployment at the Moon’s South Pole. “We successfully passed the Preliminary Design Review of the program this year and are now deep into the detailed design leading to the Critical Design Review in 2025,” said Christian Sallaberger, Canadensys’ Founder and CEO. “This autumn we conducted a significant number of successful operational, navigation, and communication tests using various engineering development models of the rover.”

2024 also saw Canadensys working on large lunar vehicle activities. “Some of this work is commercial in nature, and some of it is related to the decision two years ago by our federal government to contribute a Lunar Utility Vehicle to the international Artemis program,” said Sallaberger. “This year, under contract to the Canadian government, we built one-ton class vehicles to develop and test LUV concept of operations technologies. Canadensys’ collaboration with international partners on commercial large lunar vehicles also continues.”

On August 2, 2024, Canadensys signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Consolidated Safety Services (CSS) to collaborate on CSS’s US$478 million NASA Research, Engineering, Mission Integration Services (REMIS-2) contract. This contract will support the work of the International Space Station Program. The companies will jointly provide spaceflight, ground hardware and software, sustaining engineering functions and services, payload facility integration, and research mission integration operations services to the ISS mission. “The MOU is a means for our two companies to combine the best of which we both do and maximize our combined value to NASA by providing top-tier solutions to ensure the reliability and efficiency of exploration systems and missions, supporting NASA’s objectives for research, innovation, and long-term human presence in space,” Sallaberger told SpaceQ.

In addition to these efforts, Canadensys is leading Canada’s efforts in lunar greenhouses. “As the astronauts spend ever longer periods on the Moon, being able to provide them with fresh produce becomes more and more important, both as quantity and variety supplementation,” said Sallaberger. “Canadensys is working with the CSA, NASA, and DLR, as well as with our partners at the University of Guelph and McGill University, to develop and test key required technologies. In 2024 our work included developments in the areas of moisture control, water management and disinfection, aeroponic growth media, nutrient delivery systems, atmospheric management including CO2/O2 exchange, growth optimized led lighting, plant health monitoring, as well as robotic operations.”

If that’s not enough activity for 2024, Canadensys also provided six lunar cameras and one telescope for the Intuitive Machines’ Odysseus commercial mission that successfully soft-landed on the lunar surface in February. “Every image from the mission that was released to the public was taken by one of our cameras,” Sallaberger said. “A few days ago we were honored to learn that one of these images has been selected as the 2024 Space Exploration Image of the Year by the Planetary Society.” These are just some of the space achievements Canadensys realized in 2024, and next year is looking to be just as promising.

“One example we are particularly looking forward to is the NASA Lunar Vertex mission,” said Sallaberger. “The mission will fly in 2025 to Reiner Gamma, which is a mysterious area of the Moon marked by magnetic anomalies as well as strange swirling patterns in the regolith. A key instrument in the suite is the Canadensys lunar multispectral microscope, which is a commercial export sale for Canadensys. We look forward to 2025 and beyond as we move forward with large lunar surface vehicles to support both commercial and government goals such as infrastructure preparation, human missions, and commercial lunar activities such as mining.”