RADARSAT-2 Mission Management - Experience from Commercial Remote Sensing Operations

Abstract

L on 14 December 2007, the RADARSAT-2 satellite with upgraded ground infrastructure provides for continuity and evolution of Canada’s spaceborne synthetic aperture RADAR (SAR) capability, established by RADARSAT-1 now in its second decade of operations [1]. Whereas RADARSAT-1 has followed the more traditional government procurement for government agency operations approach, all aspects of RADARSAT-2 fl ight operations are run on a commercial basis. Commercial considerations had a major infl uence on mission operations and system design decisions during development and now feature strongly in mission and fl ight operations management. The primary objective of the RADARSAT 2 mission is the supply and distribution of synthetic aperture radar data and products that will meet the needs of evolving markets, with a fi nancially viable approach, and by leveraging the knowledge and experience gained through the RADARSAT 1 mission and taking advantage of newly developed technologies. The RADARSAT-2 system, shown in Fig. 1, was developed by MDA under contract to and in partnership with the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) and is now managed, operated, and maintained by MDA. MDA performs the operations management, undertakes the mission system engineering, and provides for the operations functions of order-handling maintenance and operations planning, satellite control and maintenance, SAR data processing and distribution, and image quality maintenance, directly and through service subcontracts using MDA-owned infrastructure. In these, Telesat and SED systems are major suppliers of satellite