SARTREK Newsletter: August 2004

In This Issue:

1. RADARSAT-2 Is Coming Together
2. RADARSAT-2 Order Handling System
3. The Special RADARSAT-2 Issue of the Canadian Journal of Remote Sensing
4. RADARSAT-2 Commercialization Roadmap

RADARSAT-2 Is Coming Together

There was excitement in the air on May 11, 2004. The Russian Antonov AN-225 Mriya aircraft landed at MacDonald Cartier International airport in Ottawa, Canada carrying the RADARSAT-2 bus module! The heavy-lift aircraft carried the + 33,000kg bus without mishap from Italy to the David Florida Laboratory (DFL) in Ottawa.

The DFL, Canada's world-class spacecraft assembly, integration and testing centre, is maintained and operated by the Canadian Space Agency and is where RADARSAT-2 will be assembled and tested in preparation for its launch in 2006. The bus is the second RADARSAT-2 component to arrive at DFL; the solar arrays arrived earlier this year.

The MDA Integration team and Alenia Aeronautical staff are actively testing various components of the bus. More activity is expected over the next several months as RADARSAT-2 starts to come together.

The RADARSAT-2 bus module at the David Florida Laboratory in Ottawa, Canada.

Alenia Aeronautical of Italy primed the RADARSAT-2 bus component which contains all the systems and interfaces necessary to operate and maintain the satellite and support the SAR payload. Our SARTrek Newsletter Issue 10/Vol 3, December 2003 provides a summary of the bus and its function.

RADARSAT-2 Order Handling System

The RADARSAT-2 Order Handling System (OHS) passed a major milestone with the completion of Phase 2 activities. The Order Desk (a component of the OHS) will be the front-end interface through which staff, distributors, network stations and regional partners can request and monitor a RADARSAT-2 order.

We are very excited about this new web-based system as it will provide greater access to your order information as compared to the current RADARSAT-1 system. The Order Desk provides partners around the world with secure Internet access to submit their acquisition requests. In addition, the system will allow for speedy feedback on the status of an order as it passes through the various order processing stages: order acceptance, satellite programming, data acquisition, data reception, data processing and product delivery.

Staff at , the Canadian Space Agency and the Canadian Ice Service have been trained by MDA on this phase of the OHS system. will now enhance the interface to bring in additional features required for business operations.

The graphic below provides a view of the new OHS "Order List" page.

Click here to see large image

The Special RADARSAT-2 Issue of the Canadian Journal of Remote Sensing

We are very pleased to announce that the Canadian Journal of Remote Sensing (CJRS) has dedicated a special issue to the RADARSAT-2 satellite and program. CJRS is the official journal of the Canadian Remote Sensing Society (CRSS), a constituent society of the Canadian Aeronautics and Space Institute (CASI).

This special issue discusses a variety of topics including the RADARSAT-2 space and ground segment design, commercialization activities and applications development. To view the table of contents click here and to read abstracts of the articles, visit http://pubs.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca/cjrs/cjrs.html.

RADARSAT-2 Commercialization Roadmap

has focused, and continues to focus, energy on the commercialization of RADARSAT-2 products and services. In the special RADARSAT-2 issue of the CJRS, we discuss and outline a possible roadmap leading "From Data to Information". We have included an excerpt from the paper and hope that is stimulates discussion and ideas for the development of information products derived from not only RADARSAT-2, but all remote sensing data.

One of the main goals of the Science and Operational Applications Research Program (SOAR) is to explore potential RADARSAT-2 commercialization options and information products. Submissions of Letters of Intent to the SOAR program are accepted until December 2004. We welcome your interest and look forward to you joining us in the SOAR program.