< PreviousUp Front 10 www.wia-canada.org Building the aerospace leaders of tomorrow – while empowering today’s executives to chart the course. ASCEND: Invest in your people – transform your workplace by signing up for the ASCEND Corporate Leadership Program. Contact WIA-Canada at info@wia-canada.org to learn more about enrollment options. AN EX CL USI VE OP POR TUNIT Y FOR CORPORA TE MEMBERS Ascend brings together two complementary streams that create a 360° corporate solution: • LaunchPad – Bottom-Up Leadership Development: For early- to mid-career professionals. Builds confidence, visibility, and readiness for advancement. • FlightPath – Top-Down Executive Engagement: For senior leaders and executives. Provides inclusive-leadership workshops, culture audits, and change. Why Participate: Strengthen your internal leadership pipeline Improve retention and advancement of under-represented talent Equip leaders to build inclusive, high-performing teams Elevate your brand as an industry DEI leader Program fees apply. Corporate Members receive priority enrollment and preferred pricing for the Ascend Program. WIA’S CORPORATE LEADERSHIP PROGRAM ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ 12 www.wia-canada.org hen Holly Johnson talks about space, you can hear the passion in her voice; the same she’s had since childhood. She was introduced to space at a young age by her dad and great- uncle when they’d spend time at her great- uncle’s cottage. The three of them would go out at night and track satellites. “When you’re up north, without the bright lights of the city, you look up and you see this fantastic portal into the galaxy and into space,” Johnson says. “I remember thinking, ‘Wow, how amazing is it that we, as humanity, have built the capability to launch things that orbit our planet that can help us do things like communicate around the world and take pictures of Earth.’” While her fascination started early, she saw working in aerospace as a dream job, something out of her reach. At first, she thought the only pathway to space was working for NASA. But her parents, noticing she caught what Johnson calls the space bug, showed her the reality: Canada had its own incredible contributions to space, like the Canadarm. Fostering curiosity Johnson grew up in Brampton, Ontario, the home of MDA Space headquarters. Her parents would drive by MDA Space and teach her about Canada’s role in space missions. A Journey from Stargazer to Space Leader Northern Skies: W From childhood nights spent tracking satellites to leading teams developing Canada’s next-generation space robotics, Holly Johnson’s journey is powered by curiosity and courage. With expertise from Robotics and Space Operations at MDA Space. By Kaitlin Vitt, Staff Writer. Feature Holly Johnson.13 Feature Fast forward to today, Johnson is the Vice President of Robotics and Space Operations at MDA Space. She and her team are working on developing Canadarm3, the next generation of the iconic technology set to operate on NASA’s Gateway. “We’re looking to commercialize that technology because the space industry is going through a huge growth curve right now, estimating over two trillion dollars in the next decade, with more countries and companies going to space,” she says. The technology Johnson and her team are working on, MDA SKYMAKER™, is derived from Canadarm technology and can be applied to many new space applications that MDA Space is talking to customers about, including commercial space stations, on-orbit servicing of satellites, lunar rovers, and asteroid mining. “Some of these things seem far out, but with access to space becoming easier, and with our robotics being a key enabler of large space infrastructure platforms, the sky is really the limit in terms of what we can do from our headquarters here in Canada.” Pathway to success Johnson credits her rise through MDA Space to a mix of curiosity, mentorship, and an openness to new challenges. “That passion leads you through the challenging times,” she says. “If you have a passion for doing something and you’re curious, you and your team will find a way to make things happen.” Throughout her career, key managers recognized that drive, giving her opportunities to grow and learn every aspect of program development, from customer engagement to installation. “The transitions throughout my career have always been natural for me because I followed This love of space never left her. Johnson studied engineering at the University of Toronto, and when it was time for her internship, she had her eyes on a coveted position with MDA Space. There was only one opening, and while she says she wasn’t at the top of her class in terms of academics, she had the strongest passion for aerospace. She got the internship – getting her dream job while only a co-op student – and worked for a year and a half on the Canadarm program, supporting missions on the space shuttle. "Some of these things seem far out, but with access to space becoming easier, and with our robotics being a key enabler of large space infrastructure platforms, the sky is really the limit in terms of what we can do from our headquarters here in Canada.” A view of Canada’s Northern Lights with Canadarm3 in the foreground. Photos courtesy of MDA. The technology the MDA team is working on, MDA SKYMAKER™, is derived from Canadarm technology and can be applied to commercial space stations, on-orbit servicing of satellites, lunar rovers, and asteroid mining. Holly Johnson and the team at MDA are working on developing Canadarm3, the next generation of the iconic technology set to operate on NASA’s Gateway (shown here).14 www.wia-canada.org Feature that deep passion I had for the company and the work that we do and the impact we can have on the global space sector,” she says. A team sport Johnson oversees 1,000 people and dozens of projects. Her leadership philosophy is grounded in trust and collective expertise. “We need to deliver technology that’s state-of-the-art and works the first time, every time,” she says. “It’s a team sport. It’s not up to one individual to have all the expertise to accomplish a goal, and not everyone needs to follow the same leadership path.” She’s also passionate about recognizing and developing what she calls stretch talent – putting people in new roles, even if their experience doesn’t perfectly align on paper. “Any time I was put into a role in the past five to seven years, I didn’t have a long list of proven expertise or years of experience,” she explains. “I had mentors and managers who saw potential in me and knew I had the skill set, even if I hadn’t done the role before. You don’t necessarily have to have done it before to learn how to do it now.” She notes organizations like Women in Aerospace Canada that offer mentorship and support can be so helpful for people growing their careers. Finding balance In August, Johnson returned to work after maternity leave, a transition that gave her a new perspective on balance. “While I was very, very excited to start a new journey with my son, I really missed working,” she says. “It’s been fantastic to be back in the business and solving all the hard things the team solves on a daily basis. It’s a good balance for me to be back.” Her advice for others navigating the same transition is simple, but honest. “The biggest piece of advice after parental leave is listen to your gut,” she says. “The idea that you’ll have perfect balance is far-fetched – you have to juggle. You wake up every day and figure out what the priority is.” For Johnson, that means aligning each day around purpose. “For me, it was about figuring out how I could go home after work, spend time with my son and see what he’s learned in a day, put him to bed, maybe do a bit more work, and do it all again the next day.” Looking ahead As she looks to the future, Johnson is focused on where MDA Space is headed next. “One area that’s exciting for me is transforming from a business that designs and delivers space robotics to one that also operates them,” she says. “We’ve built out mission control centres to operate robotic systems, whether they’re orbiting Earth, orbiting the moon, or on the moon.” That transformation will soon take tangible form. “Stay tuned for a few years when we’ll be operating Canadarm3 from right here in Brampton, operating it near the moon,” she says. That sense of wonder and excitement of looking up at the night sky and imagining what’s possible has never left Johnson. Rather, it evolved into leadership that’s helping Canada shape the next frontier of space exploration. 16 www.wia-canada.org Feature pace exploration is shifting from a realm inhabited solely by government agencies to one with a commercial ecosystem that is expanding upon the scaffolding that government-funded scientific research and development built over the last few decades. Government, academic research, and private space companies each bring distinct strengths to the table, but by joining forces, they can each reach their full potential. Bridging cultural barriers Some of the biggest barriers to collaboration are cultural differences. Many academics still see industry as something to be wary of, as if commercial involvement somehow contaminates the purity of research. But industry isn’t in itself inherently evil; it is often the fastest path to scale the results of research. A brilliant idea does no good if it is isolated to pages of a journal article locked behind a paywall. Partnering with a company (or founding your own) can take that algorithm, instrument, or dataset and deploy it in the real world. Industry should be viewed as a way to amplify the results of research. Industry, on the other hand, must stop viewing academia as too slow to be relevant to their needs, or simply being a source for cheap interns. Universities represent a deep pool of research and development, with thousands of brilliant minds exploring technologies that could become the next big leap for space exploration. By working with universities, industry can help to drive the direction of research to address actual technical needs of the market. This can help to better prepare students for the workforce after graduation, by exposing them to how industry works and training them on your products and platforms. It can also lead to new product development. For example, one of the core data products from the Earth observation company Planet was the direct result of academic research conducted at King Abdullah University Space exploration is no longer a solo mission – it’s a team sport. When government, academia, and industry join forces, scientific breakthroughs can leap off the page and into orbit. of the Outer Space Institute Accelerating Discovery Through Collaboration Shared Horizons: S Rocket Lab conceptual art for their Mars Sample Return architecture. Photo courtesy of Rocket Lab. Tanya Harrison.17 Feature of Science and Technology (KAUST). The researcher who developed the technique was later hired by Planet to run a team to turn his technique into a fully-fledged commercial product line. A university insight, scaled through industry, now powers agricultural monitoring around the world for both commercial customers and academic researchers. Returns on investment Commercial Earth observation companies have transformed how we monitor climate, agriculture, natural disasters, and more. Through the NASA Commercial Satellite Data Acquisition (CSDA) Program, federally funded researchers in the United States can access an array of commercial datasets – from visible and hyperspectral imagery to radar to methane emissions – at no cost to the researcher. Instead, the government procures these datasets through bulk data buys, negotiating terms with each company. A similar program exists for European researchers through the European Space Agency’s Third Party Missions Program. These programs give scientists access to commercial datasets for their Earth science research, industry gains technical validation and scientific insights that can translate into product development and marketing use cases, and governments help to grow the Earth observation (EO) sector while gaining value on taxpayer investment. It’s a win-win-win scenario all around. Expanding horizons The Moon is becoming the next testing ground for agile exploration. NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative is creating an increasing cadence of missions where small science payloads can fly at much lower price points than a traditional NASA mission. But the real potential is more than just hitching a ride. When scientists are involved from the outset – selecting landing sites, defining concepts of operations, setting data standards, and sharing their lessons learned from successful NASA missions – the results are both scientifically richer and commercially stronger. The current “gold rush” framing for lunar exploration, where companies and countries are racing to extract valuable water ice and helium-3 from the south polar region, was itself spurred by researchers making discoveries from scientific missions over the past 20+ years in their attempt to understand the geologic history of the Moon. Commercial actors are starting to emerge for Mars exploration as well. Private firms like SpaceX, Blue Origin, and Rocket Lab are developing rockets, landers, communications relays, and even sample return systems that could host scientific instruments. From a purely commercial standpoint (that is, not taking into account Elon Musk’s own personal desires for Mars), this sudden interest from industry is due to NASA voicing its needs. Massive budget cuts, combined with aging infrastructure at the Red Planet, has led them to look to industry for help in maintaining their continuity at Mars. Science will likely define the why of Mars exploration in the near term, but industry can increasingly enable the how. An analysis of crop types across Ukraine performed by NASA Harvest researchers using Planet data to assess food security concerns arising from the war in 2022. Photo courtesy of NASA Harvest. continued on page 20 situationssituations Next >