SASKATOON — Innovation Saskatchewan is allocating $600,000 over three years through the Innovation and Science Fund (ISF) for a project supporting the HAWC (High-altitude Aerosol, Water vapour and Cloud) satellite mission.
HAWC is the Canadian Space Agency's contribution to the Atmosphere Observing System (AOS) mission led by NASA slated to launch in 2031. ISF matches federal innovation funding dollars for projects from Saskatchewan universities, colleges and research institutes.
The program funding will help HAWC advance Canadian space science through the development of advanced technological space instruments. Co-led by a team of talented USask researchers, HAWC will deliver critical measurements to support extreme weather prediction, climate modelling and disaster monitoring. Further, it provides new data for scientists to better analyze, interpret and understand factors contributing to climate change.
Innovation Saskatchewan says this investment in HAWC is a catalyst for economic growth, developing a mission-critical national data centre in Saskatchewan, providing advanced training and employment opportunities and creating intellectual property and local investment opportunities.
The HAWC science team is a Canada-wide group of researchers comprising USask as the lead institution of a 14-university consortium, along with the Canadian Space Agency, Environment and Climate Change Canada and the National Research Council Canada. Project leaders Dr. Adam Bourassa and Dr. Doug Degenstein are from USask's College of Engineering and Engineering Physics.
The HAWC mission consists of three cutting-edge climate science satellite instruments, of which two are designed by USask: ALI (Aerosol Limb Imager), a satellite imager for aerosol profiling, and SHOW (Spatial Heterodyne Observations of Water), a satellite imager for water vapour.
