The Toronto-area Canadensys Aerospace has partnered with Norway’s Kongsberg Satellite Services (KSAT) for communication services in support of a Canadian lunar rover.
KSAT, which is part of the rover team, pledged to provide ground station services for the mission. It will use very large aperture antennas for direct communications between the moon and Earth.
The company already has a network of more than 300 antennas in 28 selected locations, according to its website, which includes some partner antennas. KSAT plans to have three 20-meter X/KA antennas devoted to lunar exploration – placed in the southwestern US, Spain and Australia – that will be operational by mid-2027.
“KSAT is a driving force in global commercial lunar exploration activities, and their approach mirrors very well our own commercial philosophy in the design and implementation of lunar missions,” stated Christian Sallaberger, president and CEO at Canadensys. “We are happy to have their support on the Canadian lunar rover mission, and look forward to collaborating on future missions as well.”
Canadensys was awarded a $43 million contract in 2022 to build Canada’s first lunar rover, under the Canadian Space Agency’s (CSA’s) Lunar Exploration Accelerator Program (LEAP). With a 30 kg mass, the rover is tasked to land at the lunar south pole for scientific objectives including examining the geology, looking at volatiles (such as water ice) in permanently shadowed regions, and doing other research on life science and astronaut health.
Western University planetary geologist Gordon “Oz” Osinski, a crater specialist known for training CSA and NASA astronauts on lunar geology analogue environments, is principal investigator and scientific lead on rover. Numerous partners in the US and Canada will collaborate on the six payloads (five Canadian, one American) and other aspects of the rover, as Canadensys officials wrote in 2022. Launch is set for no earlier than 2026.
On LinkedIn, Canadensys added its staff scientists hosted lunar rover mission science team members from Université de Sherbrooke (in Quebec) and Western University (based in London). The group used two lunar rover imaging instruments, similar to what will be used during the actual mission, “to conduct tests on terrestrial analog samples of the same materials we expect to find at the lunar south pole.”
The CSA has been supporting lunar rover technology development since 2008, as SpaceQ has written about in the past, which included awards to several companies that produced prototypes. The Canadensys rover will fly as a part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative, which aims to fly scientific payloads to support the ongoing Artemis astronaut program. CLPS had its first partially successful landing on Feb. 15, 2024, with Intuitive Machine’s Odysseus, which performed most of its science despite landing askew on the surface. The first fully successful moon landing for CLPS was on Jan. 15, 2025, with Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost.
CSA was an early participant in the NASA-led Artemis Accords, which are both a framework for exploration as well as a commitment – by certain partners, including Canada – to provide key hardware for astronaut missions in exchange for seats and/or science. Canada’s keystone contribution is the Canadarm3, which is being built by MDA to support operations of the future NASA Gateway station that will be in lunar orbit. LEAP, however, is another large part of the contribution as CSA is using the program to support surface activities.
In exchange for CSA’s contribution, astronaut Jeremy Hansen has a seat as a mission specialist aboard the Artemis 2 mission, which is set to go around the moon no earlier than next year; he will also bring CSA-funded science and technology aboard. The financial contribution also allows CSA astronauts to participate in future Artemis missions aboard Gateway, and possibly for the lunar surface.
Gateway was zeroed out, however, in the NASA “skinny budget” for fiscal 2026 proposed by the White House, but MDA has emphasized that its Canadarm3 contract is with CSA and construction is proceeding. Moreover, the White House-led budget must pass Congress before being approved.
Negotiations are ongoing. Earlier in June, Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) presented a proposal to add $10 billion in NASA funding back into the budget, including for the Gateway. (Cruz is chair of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, and his jurisdiction includes NASA’s Johnson Space Center – the heart of agency human exploration in Texas.) The Senate committee proposal also restores funding for the Space Launch System and Orion Crew Vehicle for two more missions, Artemis 4 and 5, beyond the “skinny budget” that only covers Artemis 2 and 3.
