NEWS BRIEFS

SPAR APPOINTS NEW CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER

Mar.11, Mississauga, Ontario - Spar today announced the appointment of Colin D. Watson as Spar's new Chief Executive Officer. He succeeds John D. MacNaughton who is retiring after 22 years at Spar. Watson joins Spar from Rogers Communications Inc. where he was director and Chief Operating Officer of Cable Television as well as President and Chief Executive Officer of Rogers Cablesystems Limited.

TELEGLOBE FORMS MOBILE SAT VENTURE WITH NEWEAST

Mar.1, Montreal - Teleglobe is regrouping its Inmarsat activities in an agreement in principle with NewEast Wireless Technologies Inc. of St.John's. The new enterprise will group and sell each of their mobile sat products and services together with a complete end-to-end capability.

MSAT-1 DEPARTS OTTAWA FOR KOUROU LAUNCH

Mar.19, Ottawa - TMI Communications today announced the departure of the MSAT-1 mobile communications satellite from the Space Agency's David Florida Laboratory. The spacecraft left for its launch aboard an Ariane 4 from Kourou, French Guiana later in April.

CAL CORP. AWARDED SEARCH AND RESCUE CONTRACTS

Mar.5, Ottawa - CAL Corp. of Ottawa has been awarded several contracts for its Search and Rescue ground station systems with Taiwan, Japan, Australia, Brazil and Canada.

RADARSAT INTERNATIONAL SIGNS AGREEMENT WITH VENEZUELAN FIRM

RADARSAT International of Vancouver has entered into an image distribution agreement with Soluciones Integrales GIS C.A. of Caracus, Venezuela. The Venezuelan firm will develop RADARSAT based image products and merge RADARSAT imagery into other remote sensing products.

QUEEN'S UNIVERSITY EXPERIMENT LAUNCHED ABOARD SHUTTLE ATLANTIS

QUELD, the Queen's University Experiment in Liquid Diffusion was launched today aboard the Shuttle Atlantis (STS-76) for a rendez-vous with the Mir Space Station. The experiment is being transported as stowage aboard the SpaceHab module and will be transferred to Mir and left in orbit aboard the Mir station for several months.

EVENTS

CANADIAN SPACE SOCIETY MARCH 26TH - SPACE SYSTEMS DESIGN PROJECT

The SPACEBOUND 96 Conference originally scheduled for Winnipeg in May has been postponed. The conference, which caters to the Canada's microgravity science community, conflicts with the upcoming Shuttle missions in May and June. Spacebound 97 will be held in May in the Montreal.

The Canadian Space Society decided in February to undertake a space systems design project, under the leadership of Mr. Owen Maynard. Mr. Maynard was Chief of NASA's Apollo Spacecraft Program Systems Engineering and Operations Planning Divisions from 1965-1970, and during the mid-1970's worked at Raytheon Corp. as a senior engineering manager, in charge of leading up Raytheon's Solar Power Satellite program.

The CSS project will be to develop a systems design for a Lunar South Pole Ice Prospecting Rover, using beamed power to make up for the lack of sunlight in the lunar south polar basin. The project will include development of a working demonstration of a teleoperated rover and power beaming equipment.

The CSS is looking for volunteers to staff this project on a part-time basis. For more information, contact the project's administrator, Greg Leach, at 416-488-6508. The project will be mainly carried out in Toronto, but is willing to work with people in other locations who are able to contribute effectively.

The initial design meeting for this project will be held on Tuesday, March 26 at 7: 30 P.M., in Room 252 at 155 College Street in Toronto (south side of College, just west of University Avenue). All interested in participating, or in finding out about the project, are welcome to attend.

For more information, contact: Kieran A. Carroll, Dynacon Enterprises Limited at kac@sdr.utias.utoronto.ca

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