MDA Space Missions

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MDA Space Missions

Type	Subsidiary
Founded	MD Robotics (1999), Dynacs (2002)
Headquarters	Richmond, BC and Houston, Texas
Key people	Dan King (Director of Orbital Robotics at MD Robotics), Stan Starr (Chief Engineer and Deputy Program Director at Dynacs)
Parent	MacDonald Dettwiler
Website	sm.mdacorporation.com

MDA Space Missions is an operating unit of MacDonald Dettwiler and Associates, comprised of the following wholly owned subsidiaries:

MD Robotics (former Space and Advanced Robotics Division of Spar Aerospace), a robotic engineering company based in Brampton, Ontario.
Dynacs, an engineering systems company with locations in Houston, Texas, Kennedy Space Center in Florida, and Albuquerque, New Mexico.

In addition to design, safety, reliability, and quality assurance engineering services, MDA's contributions include:

Canadarm
Canadarm2 for the International Space Station
RADARSAT-1, the first commercial radar earth observation satellite
RADARSAT-2
Special Purpose Dexterous Manipulator also known as "Dextre" or the "Canada Hand"

In January 2005, the unit won a high profile project (valued at $154 million USD) to provide a rescue and repair solution for the Hubble Space Telescope.^[1] The contract was later canceled by NASA.

MDA is on the SpaceX team, one of the two corporate teams chosen by NASA on March 3, 2006 for a competition to develop crew and cargo launch services for the International Space Station. The Dragon capsule segment of the project would be berthed to the space station by using Canadarm2 in the final approach phase.