Artist’s rendition of Radarsat 1. Photo: Canadian Space Agency

[Via Satellite 10-07-2016] Canada’s Department of National Defence (DND) has exercised a CA$15 million ($11.3 million) option for a contract with MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates (MDA), first announced in June 2016, for maritime surveillance. MDA will use the Canadian government-owned Radarsat Constellation Mission (RCM) to provide Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) capabilities for the DND Polar Epsilon 2 (PE2) project, providing a broad-area maritime surveillance capability.

The PE2 ground systems will include ground segment systems with the capability to receive and use information from the RCM SAR satellites MDA is currently building for the Canadian Space Agency. PE2 is expected to provide the DND with daily maritime information over millions of square kilometers from SAR imagery within minutes of imaging.