Beyond borders: A celebration of US–Canada space collaboration

Uploaded on July 4, 2024

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Beyond borders: A celebration of US–Canada space collaboration

Christina Koch, NASA astronaut and Mission Specialist on Artemis II, reflects on the space collaboration between Canada and the United States. Our collaboration spans from the iconic Canadarm and Canadarm2 to missions like Expedition 59, Artemis II and upcoming Gateway. (Credits: Canadian Space Agency, NASA)

Christina Koch: I think the international cooperation on the Space Station is one of the best reasons that we actually have the Space Station.

Of course, it was primarily for science, for doing things that we can’t discover anywhere else, but along the way we really learned how to partner with other countries and oftentimes we are an example for how to do that.

You find that all the diversity of thought and culture when it comes together onboard the Space Station it makes the mission itself so much more successful because everyone has a different approach to things, everyone has a different way of looking at things, and that means that when we have to troubleshoot or attack a problem, we can do it with so many more ideas, and it’s just an awesome thing to be a part of.

I was fortunate that in Expedition 59 on the ISS I got to fly with David Saint-Jacques. 

Canada and the U.S.’s cooperation in human space exploration, it runs so deep. All the way back to robotics on the shuttle and probably even before that.

But of course, in my experience, one of the most important pieces of equipment we have on board the Space Station is the Canadarm, the robotic arm that enables us to have visiting vehicles, to do all kinds of maintenance to the external side of the Space Station, and that’s going to become even more important when we have things like Gateway.

When we work in Mission Control in Houston, operating the Space Station, we’re talking to people from the Canadian mission control, you know, talking to other centres all over the world, so it’s really awesome and of course, our astronauts fly together, we share a special relationship there, and we just continue to build on that partnership.

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