Spar Aerospace

SPAR Aerospace was a Canadian aerospace company. It produced equipment for the Canadian Space Agency to be used in cooperation with NASA's Space Shuttle program, most notably the Canadarm remote manipulator system.

The robotics division was sold in 1999 and is now part of MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates as MD Robotics, a subsidiary of its MDA Space Missions division. As part of MDA, it developed the Mobile Servicing System ("Canadarm2") for the International Space Station.

The company was originally formed in 1967 in Brampton, Ontario through a management buyout of de Havilland Canada’s Special Products division and Avro Canada's Applied Research unit. This gave the name Special Products/Applied Research. or SPAR for short. Special Products was best known for the construction of the Alouette 1 satellite, which made Canada the fourth spacefaring nation. The company was initially involved in spacecraft applications. Larry Clarke led the formation of the company and was its first president.

As part of the Space Shuttle program, the National Research Council of Canada agreed to take on the task of building a robot arm to equip the Shuttle's as Canada's contribution to the effort. SPAR was selected to build the system, which became known as the Canadarm. This also led to their successful 1992 bid on the Canadarm 2 for the International Space Station. The company was also the prime contractor on a number of satellites, including Anik-E, Olympus 1s (L-SAT), and Radarsat-1. However, through the 1990s the space industry underwent a period of intense consolidation and SPAR was largely locked out of the market. Further sales were not forthcoming, and the company sold the space division to Orbital Sciences in 1999, who sold it in turn to MacDonald Dettwiler in 2001 to become MD Robotics, and then again to Allianz Technosystems in 2008.

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