NRC Annual Report 2001-2002

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N R C – F R O M D I S C O V E R Y T O I N N O V A T I O N...“NRC National Reach – Local Touch”In addition to their national mandates, NRC’sinstitutes, innovation and technology centres,IRAP, CTN, and CISTI, provide a visible andvalued federal government presence andaccess point for industry and universities inover 90 locations across Canada.8NRC – Contributions to Canada’s majorR&D initiatives & programsSustained investments in R&D help advance knowledgeand develop technologies for Canada’s future. NRCworks in research fields of strategic national importance:• TRIUMF – Tri-University Meson Facility• Sudbury Neutrino Observatory• Canadian Light Source• Grid and High Powered Computing (HPC)• Nanotechnology R&D• NRC – National Fuel Cells Program• National security – chemical, biological,radiation and chemical threats• Genomics and health R&D – supportingthe Canadian Biotechnology Strategy• Special Interest Groups, Network Centresof Excellence (NCEs) and Federal InnovationNetworks of Excellence (FINE)• National Guide to Sustainable MunicipalInfrastructure• Photonics R&D and manufacturingtechnologies• And many more.Contributions to the Canadian LightSource – probing the unknownNRC scientists are making key contributions tothe Canadian Light Source (CLS) in Saskatoon,Saskatchewan. For example, researchers fromthe NRC Steacie Institute for Molecular Sciences(NRC-SIMS) are actively involved in planningresearch for the Far-Infrared Beamline at CLS.They will address such issues as: how energy flowsamong different parts of a molecule; what thenature and the forces are among atoms and molecules;how metal atoms bond to other chemicalgroups; and what the properties of carbon chainmolecules are and why astronomers find so manyof them in outer space. Beamline-based studies ofsurfaces and other interfaces with high spatialprecision will help in the development of miniatureoptical and biochemical sensors.Photo: Todd Korol for the University of Saskatchewan
Renewing NRC’s CanadianBioinformatics Resource (CBR)Worldwide growth in life sciences, genomics andbiotechnology will accelerate rapidly in comingyears creating a pressing need to organize andanalyze the large data sets that are fundamental toresearch in these fields. To prepare for the challenge,NRC has undertaken a comprehensiverestructuring of CBR, earning recognition by theSun Corporation as the "NRC Sun Centre ofExcellence in Distributed Bioinformatics" – one ofjust six Sun Centres of Excellence worldwide.Advances in basic sciencesTop: The “Perfect SpiralGalaxy,” captured witha new instrument ofNRC design at theGemini NorthTelescope; Right: NRCcontributions to newsoftware for the FUSEsatellite will help extendthe mission from threeto five years; Bottom:This giant gas cloudfound by NRCresearchers could leadto a new understandingof the interstellarmedium.D i s c o v e r yAstronomy and astrophysics –our gateway to the starsNRC conducts leading-edge research in astronomyand astrophysics, and provides the Canadianastronomy community with access to major astronomicalfacilities in Canada and internationally.NRC is also a world leader in the development ofadvanced instrumentation and works to transfer theknowledge and technologies it develops in astronomyand astrophysics to other disciplines.Cold cloud casts big shadowResearchers from the NRC Herzberg Institute forAstrophysics (NRC-HIA) have uncovered a cold,hard fact that could leave prevailing theories aboutthe interstellar medium (ISM) in the dust. Theyhave found and accurately measured the temperatureof a giant gas cloud in the ISM that is 6,000light years across with a mass 20 million timesgreater than the Sun. As reported in Nature (July2001), this is the first finding of a super-massiveinterstellar cloud composed primarily of very coldatomic hydrogen. This finding opens up new areasfor investigation and could force astronomers tore-examine their understanding of the ISM and itsrole in the life cycle of stars and galactic evolution.S C I E N C E A T W O R K F O R C A N A D AOrbiting FUSE repaired – from EarthWithout ever leaving the ground, NRC astronomersand engineers have helped devise an innovativerecovery scheme for the Far Ultraviolet ExplorerSatellite (FUSE). The spacecraft was launched in1999 on a joint mission between NASA, theCanadian Space Agency (CSA) and the FrenchCentre national d’études spatiales. Its mission is tostudy the rich FAR UV spectrum, inaccessible by theHubble Telescope. FUSE was designed to last threeyears but, midway during its second year, ring lasergyroscopes began to fail, affecting navigationcontrol and threatening to push the Canadian FineError Sensor (FES) far beyond design limits. TheCanadian team, including CSA contractors atComDev and the University of Toronto, and NRC-HIA worked to devise new software to track starsdrifting across the FES field of view. NASA has nowapproved the FUSE mission to operate for fiveyears.9
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NRC Annual Report 2001-2002

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