STAY CONNECTED: Have the stories that matter most delivered every night to your email inbox. Subscribe to our daily local news wrap.

Canada’s MDA to supply NASA with spacecraft platform for asteroid mission

Jan 6, 2017 | 3:45 AM

VANCOUVER — NASA has chosen a Canadian company to build a spacecraft platform that will venture to a metallic asteroid called 16 Psyche.

MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates (TSX:MDA) says the contract is expected to be worth $100 million when finalized (US$75 million).

Its SSL unit in Palo Alto, Calif., will provide a spacecraft platform equipped with a high-power solar electric propulsion system.

NASA says the spacecraft is expected to be launched in 2023, pass by Mars two years later, and arrive at Psyche in 2030.