Skip to content

City launches Space Week and more details on Zero Gravity Flights

Canadore President and Space Week Co-Chair George Burton, speaks to the public about the Space Week festivities coming in October. PHOTO BY CHRIS DAWSON.

Canadore President and Space Week Co-Chair George Burton, speaks to the public about the Space Week festivities coming in October.  PHOTO BY CHRIS DAWSON.

The city of North Bay will be one of 1400 communities that will be hosting what North Bay is calling the Inaugural YYB North Bay World Space Week coming up this October. 

The city, Canadore College and a representative from S3 were on hand at Canadore College’s Aviation Campus to unveil some of the exciting out of this world initiatives that will take place that week. 

The 3-day event and will include an Industry Day, an Education Day and a Space Day available to the general public.

While the main focus of the local World Space Week activities will be to promote both the YYB North Bay assets and opportunities to key industry targets, local school children and to the public at large, there will be a dual purpose - the official launch of the on-line sales site for Swiss Space Systems‟ S3 ZeroG (Zero Gravity) Experience, which will provide the public with their first opportunity to purchase flight seat on this unique aircraft. 

Rolf Brandt, the Canadian representative for S3 Space Systems told the media and onlookers about the initiative which will include more testing this fall with the hopes of having their first Zero Gravity flights out of North Bay to take off in the spring or summer of 2016.

Brandt says they are in the process of testing the modified airliner that will need certification from European authorities first and then in North America S3 will need certification from both NAV Canada and Transport Canada before any flights can take place. 

He admits that some maintenance on the aircraft will be done here in North Bay as well as in Switzerland and he stated S3 is not planning to have S3 bring workers to North Bay on a permanent basis. 

“At this point we don’t have plans to have a permanent installation here in North Bay but what we are hoping to do is by bringing an attraction to North Bay and working with the city that we will bring tourism to the area and obviously secondary jobs that come out of the event,” said Brandt, noting they need to fill at least two flights of 160 passengers in total, to get the Zero Gravity flights off the ground.   

A model of the S3 zero gravity airliner and the S3 Space Shuttle that is still in the development stages.  Tests for both the Space Shuttle and the Modified Zero Gravity Airliner will be done in North Bay again this fall.  PHOTO BY CHRIS DAWSON.

Canadore’s George Burton and Mayor Al McDonald have been named the official Co-Chair’s for Space week.   

Burton feels events like this are a one giant step in the right direction. 

“Do we know what the future holds for North Bay in space? We aren’t certain,” said Burton.  

“All we know is we are taking small baby steps, putting North Bay on the map as a possible site for investment for aerospace and space and if you look at the accomplishments to date, they are quite astounding as we started from zero. It’s these type of ventures you have to pursue to see what is there, it’s just one small example of doing that.”

Burton also unveiled a competition that will be made available nationally to high school students.  S3 will allow a portion of their zero gravity plane available for science experiments, with the student with the most unique experiment to receive a free Zero Gravity flight.  

Nipissing MP Jay Aspin also announced an injection of $50,000 in FEDNOR funding which will go towards helping promote the event.   

Other activities connected to the Space Week festivities include a visit by Canadian Astronaut Chris Hadfield, who will be doing a presentation at the Capitol Centre on Saturday, October 10th.  


Chris Dawson

About the Author: Chris Dawson

Chris Dawson has been with BayToday.ca since 2004. He has provided up-to-the-minute sports coverage and has become a key member of the BayToday news team.
Read more

Reader Feedback