The final time SpaceQ caught up with David Saint-Jacques in March 2022 — the one flown astronaut on the Canadian House Company’s (CSA) four-person energetic roster — he was utilizing his coaching as a medical physician to help with COVID-19 care in Montreal, along with his CSA/NASA duties.
“I labored on the COVID wards for a few yr and a half,” stated Saint-Jacques. “That really took most of my time throughout the pandemic, however since this summer time the COVID wards have shut down so I’ve stepped out of that.” (Earlier than becoming a member of the CSA, Saint-Jacques was a doctor and Co-chief of Drugs at Inuulitsivik Well being Centre in Puvirnituq, Nunavik, a distant Inuit group on Hudson Bay.)
Along with his part-time doctor work over, Saint-Jacques has been busy engaged on three tasks for CSA/NASA. The primary is the Canadarm3 robotic arm being constructed for NASA’s Gateway lunar orbiting house station. Saint-Jacques is engaged on the human interfaces for this method, in live performance with Canadarm3 producer MDA, CSA, and NASA.
In contrast to the House Shuttle’s Canadarm and the ISS’s Canadarm2, Gateway’s Canadarm3 will probably be anticipated to operate autonomously utilizing its synthetic intelligence-enhanced (AI) management system. It is because Gateway will probably be unoccupied more often than not. Crews will go to it for a complete of about two months per yr, Saint-Jacques instructed SpaceQ, however the remainder of the time Canadarm3 will probably be “the one crew member,” he stated. As such, Canadarm3 could have to have the ability to carry out station upkeep, mission, and self-diagnostic/restore duties by itself with “minimal interplay from floor management.” The Canadarm3 will even have two parts at work on Gateways: a big, 8.5-metre-long arm and a smaller, extra dexterous arm.
In doing these duties underneath its personal route, Canadarm3 should preserve adequate consciousness of its environment to not hit something on Gateway because it strikes about. “People will have the ability to solely give it very, very excessive stage instructions,” stated Saint-Jacques. After receiving its orders, Canadarm3 will resolve find out how to execute them by itself.”
David Saint-Jacques’ second undertaking is focussed on efficient medical care on lengthy period/lengthy distance missions. Choices being thought of embrace self-monitoring and “self care” by astronauts to catch/deal with issues early, together with onboard medical tools that balances weight and house concerns with the chance of sure sicknesses/accidents occurring in flight.
“It is a very cool matter near my coronary heart, as a result of you understand I was a rural doctor myself,” Saint-Jacques stated. “There are similarities between the challenges by healthcare practitioners in a really distant space and the challenges confronted by the crew medical officer on an area mission. These embrace the dearth of apparatus and specialised personnel, poor bandwidth communications with specialists, and the have to be a jack-of-all-trades and have a little bit of a MacGyver spirit.”
This being stated, “sooner or later you need to draw a line and say, ‘possibly we received’t be prepared for it’,” stated Saint-Jacques. “House exploration missions will probably be extra harmful than Earth orbit missions simply since you can’t medevac.”
Lastly, David Saint-Jacques has been in Houston “possibly each month and a half or so to work in operations; to roll my sleeves up and be a mission controller or possibly an teacher for spacewalk or robotic operations,” he stated. As for his probabilities at being the Canadian astronaut on the manned Artemis II mission to the Moon, or to the ISS in 2025? “Clearly I would really like one other mission, however I don’t resolve; we don’t resolve,” Saint-Jacques replied. “So all we will do is assist one another out in order that collectively, as a gaggle, we’re the very best that we might be.”
After our interview with Saint-Jacques he was appointed as an Officer of the Order of Canada on December 29 by Mary Simon, Governor Basic of Canada. Being an appointed was the results of “his excellent contributions to science and know-how, and to well being care, as an engineer, astrophysicist, astronaut and medical physician.”
