Space agency says next Canadian astronaut blast-off unlikely before 2012

LONGUEUIL, Que. - Canada's next astronaut in orbit likely won't blast off until at least 2012, says the head of the country's space agency.
"We have a couple of more flights in line but they have not been scheduled yet so I can't tell you when they are, but they are a couple of years down the road," Steve MacLean said Friday at the agency's headquarters in Longueuil, near Montreal.
"But if we have a mission by 2012, I'll be happy."
MacLean, who was speaking as Canadian astronaut Julie Payette returned from a 16-day mission into space, said a multi-crew operational panel consisting of five or six people assigns crews for the space station and has not yet picked the next Canadian.
Also, with the United States scrapping its shuttle program next year and the new Orion space vehicle not expected before 2015, the lineups to get into orbit may be long.
MacLean predicts the next Canadian will follow in the foootsteps of Robert Thirsk, who is currently on a six-month mission on the International Space Station, and soar into orbit in a Russian Soyuz spacecraft.
MacLean himself went up aboard space shuttle Atlantis in 2006 and retired astronaut David Williams also spent time in orbit in 2007.
Later this year, Quebec billionaire Guy Laliberte will become Canada's first space tourist when he flies aboard a Russian space capsule.
Thirsk's role in space has changed with the return of Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata aboard Endeavour on Friday.
"Bob becomes the prime scientist on the Japanese module and some of the experiments are quite interesting," said MacLean, who was Thirsk's office mate for eight-and-half years.
"We're going to learn things about phenomena that we didn't know before."
MacLean said he still has yet to release the agency's long-term goals, which were expected earlier this year.
"We still have a lot of work to do across the seven (remaining shuttle) flights because we have the manipulators (Canadarms) and even on the next flight, we're testing a laser system that we hope to use and rendezvous for space vehicles in the future," MacLean said.
MacLean said he hopes to meet soon with Charles Bolden Jr., the newly minted administrator at NASA, about the ongoing partnership between Canada and NASA.
The Canadian Space Agency has added Capt. Jeremy Hansen, a native of London, Ont., and Dr. David St-Jacques of Quebec City as the first new recruits of the astronaut program since 1992.
Canada will continue to focus on robotics, a key part of the country's space contribution including its Canadarm 1 and 2 as well as Dextre, a two-armed robot that is part of the space station.