Collaborative International Lunar Agriculture Work Continues in Canada
Canadensys Receives Task Authorization from the Canadian Space Agency
The Canadian Space Agency has issued a task authorization to Canadensys to continue work on the development of a Ground Test Demonstrator (GTD) for a future Lunar Agriculture Module (LAM). This program, which is a collaboration between the Canadian and German space agencies, looks to design, produce, and operate a full-scale, closed-loop, remotely monitored and controlled lunar agriculture system, simulating operations on the lunar surface.
The Task Authorization will allow work to continue on the LAM-GTD, ongoing since 2023, and allows further refinement of Canadensys concept designs for plant growth racks, nutrient delivery, lighting, and plant health monitoring. Canadensys is supported by our extended team from the Controlled Environmental Systems Research Facility at the University of Guelph and from the Biomass Production Lab at McGill University.
The LAM-GTD effort is one of several projects at Canadensys aimed at enabling plant growth and bio-regenerative life support systems, which will be vital for long-duration crewed space missions, on the Moon, on Mars, and beyond. Through these projects, we have matured some of the key technologies needed for such systems, and also laid the foundations for demonstrating controlled environment agriculture missions on the Moon.
At its core, Canadensys says it is a space exploration company. Their efforts in sending scientific instruments to the Moon, building Canada’s first lunar rover (for scientific exploration), developing a large Lunar Utility Vehicle (to provide logistics infrastructure capability), and being a key supplier to various international commercial exploration missions are helping open up space exploration for humanity. The LAM-GTD and our other plant growth projects are aligned with our vision for a long-term human presence beyond Earth’s orbit.