Watch or read the story.

“The URA provided me with the amazing opportunity to actually do engineering work and learn alongside the best,” says Hartry. “I was on the fence about whether I wanted to study electrical or mechanical engineering and this gave me the direction I needed… I now know I want to focus on mechanical engineering.”  

Hartry spent the summer working with researcher Dr. Phil Ferguson and the team at UM’s Space Technology and Advanced Researcher (STAR) Lab in the Price Faculty of Engineering on some very special projects that will have big impact for northern communities.  

Designing airships to provide connectivity in the North 

One of Hartry’s tasks was helping to design a unmanned helium airship capable of carrying communication equipment to help connect remote communities. This technology will replace the patchwork of telecommunications systems that currently underserve communities in the North.  

Creating the reaction wheel in the lab

Using computer-aided design, Hartry learned how to account for all the factors that would affect the loft, speed and the ability of the blimp to work in arctic conditions. Through trial and error, and many iterations of the design, Hartry learned how to improve and alter the blimp to make it fit design constraints.  

His mantra for the summer was ‘Learn New Things’, because every day was filled with so many new questions and challenges.  

“It was a steep learning curve, but everyone in the lab collaborates to solve the smallest design issues,” says Hartry. “I was able to learn through an iterative process of trial and error where failure meant I just had something to build on to make it work.”  

As part of another project, Hartry worked to design a new kind of reaction wheel for satellites. With this reaction wheel, magnetic liquid could be used to spin the satellite instead of using a larger, heavier motor to spin a solid disk. This mechanism could be used for small satellite projects, such as those run by universities.   

Black magnetic liquid rotating inside the reaction wheel designed by Aidan Hartry

The cage specifications included having enough copper wiring to run a strong electrical current and enough space for the reaction wheel. With one design leading to another, the cage design continues to get smaller with a stronger magnetic field. He plans to continue this work as a volunteer in Ferguson’s lab throughout the academic year.  

Whale blubber and the tracker tag

A particularly fun and intriguing challenge for Hartry was working on the Aerial Tagging System for Beluga Whales project. Learning alongside Ferguson and the team, his challenge was to determine what velocity a dart would need to tag a whale with a tracker.  

While researchers currently tag belugas from boats in the water, this is stressful for both the researchers and whales, who are spooked by the chaos of boat noise and human interaction.   

The team is designing a system where aerial drones can be used to locate whale pods and shoot a tracker dart with enough velocity to penetrate the whale’s thick skin without causing harm or simply bouncing off.  

“I never pictured myself learning about the ballistic properties of whale blubber, but we needed to determine the surface resistance in order to create a strong enough delivery mechanism from a drone to the whale,” says Hartry. “It was a really fun and unique problem and opened my eyes to how engineering is key to pretty much every human activity” 

About Undergraduate Research Awards (URA) 

The URAs are funded through the Office of Vice-President (Research & International) and the University of Manitoba Students’ Union (UMSU), along with support from faculties. These awards provide undergraduate students with access to exciting research opportunities. 

The application period for Summer 2026 starts in mid-January.  Find more information here. 

Living through the second Trump administration as a Canadian has been likened, by one commentator, to a teenager being kicked out of the house. We must grow up fast and deal with the fact that we can now only rely on ourselves. So, the federal government is moving fast on files related to security, sovereignty and connectivity. The Liberals passed Bill C-5 to expedite projects that will help Canadians live on our own. Wonderful.

But.

In our rush forward, we cannot overlook the power of nation-building research, which must go hand-in-glove with these infrastructure projects. Research and infrastructure are not competing priorities: they are essential partners in nation-building.

Bill C-5, the Building Canada Act, grants the federal government sweeping powers to quickly build large projects that help goods move faster and more easily. This act intends to strengthen our security, autonomy, resilience and advance the interests of Indigenous Peoples. But there can be no nation-building without nation-building research.

Prime Minister Mark Carney has prioritized a project to enhance the Port of Churchill in Hudson Bay. A developed Hudson Bay region can open a stable and sustainable global supply-chain hub, bringing with it transformative socioeconomic change. But research funding is needed to bolster and protect this investment, our rare deepwater Arctic port risks falling short of its potential, or, worse, causes harm to the communities it aims to serve.

Read the full article here. 

CBC’s Up to Speed spoke with University of Manitoba professor, Philip Ferguson about what it’ll take to make it happen. 

To listen the entire conversation, please follow the link to CBC Manitoba.

Philip Ferguson, an expert in satellites at the University of Manitoba’s faculty of engineering, called Trump’s timeline unlikely.

“A lot of people have been comparing this Golden Dome project to the Iron Dome in Israel and the scale difference is huge,” he said. “You’re looking at launching hundreds or thousands of spacecraft in order just to cover the United States.”

He said when U.S. President Ronald Reagan proposed such a space-based defence program back in the 1980s — which was dubbed “Star Wars” by its critics — it was truly a “pie in the sky” proposal because not many satellites had been launched by 1983.

To read the entire article, please follow the link to The Canadian Press.

Philip Ferguson, an associate professor in the university’s mechanical engineering department, is helping develop the technology at Telesat.

The Ottawa-based company hopes to build a 200-satellite network to support Canada, so those relying on Musk’s Starlink can cut the cord with that company.

To read and watch the entire story, please follow the link to CTV Winnipeg.

Professor Ferguson was also featured in the Winnipeg Free Press, please follow the link to the Free Press.

And on CBC Manitoba’s Up to Speed.

“With new launch companies providing unprecedented access to space, we need to research and develop new ways of monitoring space objects from small spacecraft to prevent collisions and to maintain space sustainability for the entire planet. This is a challenge of global scale, requiring international collaboration between industry and academia,” says Philip Ferguson, Associate Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering and lead of UM’s Space Technology and Advanced Research Laboratory (STARLab).

To read the full story, please visit The Associated Press.