Ottawa based AstroCom Associates has ambitious plan for the future of Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) satellite imaging, if they can they overcome their one limitation.
AstroCom has helped various Government of Canada departments with radar imaging platforms, applications, algorithms and other projects over the years. Most people outside of Ottawa probably haven’t even heard of them. Now though, their ambitious plan for the future of SAR satellite imaging has caught the attention of government, and may get wider attention.
AstroCom is also only three people. Everybody else is a subcontractor. That’s a limiting factor, considering their plans.
That isn’t to minimize their skill and expertise. AstroCom is a company whose co-owners have deep experience in Canadian SAR. President Mike Stott joined in 2010 after founding Canadian Astronautics and helping develop Canada’s first communications satellite at Telesat Canada. VP Engineering, Ron Saper, came to the company in 2017 after subcontracting for three years, and was the founder of Vantage Point International which became C-CORE’s Ottawa office in 2008. Treasurer Joseph Chamberland joined in 2018, after serving as director of that same C-CORE Ottawa office.
Even so … it’s still only three people.
Yet after hearing Saper talk in an interview with SpaceQ about their current projects and future plans, you begin to understand why AstroCom is only three people. It’s not an accident, it’s a strategy. Whether the strategy will fit their ambitious plans, though, remains in question.
AstroCom and “agility”
AstroCom currently has over a million dollars in contracts with the Canadian government, including a high-profile project providing a concept study for the next generation of satellites to eventually replace the RADARSAT Constellation Mission (RCM). It does all this without nearly any permanent employees, relying on a multitude of subcontractors — both individual and companies.
That’s a feature, not a bug, of what Saper calls “a true virtual corporation”. Saper believes that this heavy reliance on individual subcontractors allows AstroCom to be both agile and flexible, allowing them to increase or decrease resource usage as needed. This also allows them to tap into pools of skills and knowledge that aren’t available through traditional employment — like individuals who may be semi-retired, otherwise self-employed, or just looking for flexibility themselves due to circumstance. Saper said it “allows you to get the best-in-class experts,” exactly when you need them.
This also extends to corporate subcontracting as well. Astrocom works with a variety of subcontractors for various parts of their projects. Companies like Magellan Aerospace, Cardinals, Elliam Inc and Victor EM have been assisting AstroCom with their Earth Observation Concept Study, with their small executive team focused on managing these individual and corporate subcontractors, and interfacing with Canadian Space Agency (CSA) and other government officials.
This would be a normal enough approach for a Silicon Valley developer, or even for a Canadian space startup. The space sector, however, is still dominated by giants like Lockheed Martin, Harris, and at a national level by Canada’s own MDA. AstroCom by comparison, is a minnow.
Yet Saper seemed undeterred. He said that these more cumbersome corporate structures lead to companies that play it too safe — using “safe” technology that may not be either the most powerful option or the cheapest, but the option least likely to disrupt the position of the corporation or its management. Saper said AstroCom’s looser structure doesn’t have that problem.
Thinking big for the next RCM
Astrocom’s most visible project right now is their Concept Study for the CSA’s Earth Observation for Service Continuity (EOSC) project. EOSC is providing the Canadian Space Agency with a variety of options from different companies, including AstroCom, on how to follow-on and eventually replace the RCM satellites.
Their satellite design, which they call RCM+ (for RADARSAT Continuity Plus) is a fair bit different than the RCM satellites that preceded it. While the trend is towards smaller and smaller satellites, Saper said that “smaller in size can mean smaller in performance.” That’s why Stott and his team are planning to make their satellite larger.
That greater size comes with advantages. AstroCom’s satellite would have a larger antenna with a more powerful cutting-edge power amplifier, allowing the satellite to send out and receive more powerful radar signals. Saper said that that will mean that RCM+ has higher image quality at a much higher resolution than the current RCM network. And when it gets those signals back, RCM+ will have more digital channels to receive and process them, allowing for further image quality and resolution improvements at a lower pulse frequency. It may also add onboard processing.
Saper said that the combination of more channels, higher power, better detection and onboard processing would also lead to an exciting new capability: moving target indication. MDA’s dual-channel RADARSAT-2 served as an experimental version with its moving object detection experiment (MODEX) module. AstroCom wants to bring it back, and Saper believes it’s a killer app for the RCM+. “MTI works”, Saper said, “if you’re looking for a ship and the waves come up, you can’t see it. But with MTI, if it’s moving, it can detect the undetectable.”
He also points to ice detection as an RCM+ strength. AstroCom is currently working with the Canadian government to improve satellite detection of icebergs, finding ways to improve detection algorithms to allow for “more reliable detection of icebergs, discrimination of icebergs from other targets … how to maximize the detection and minimize false alarms.” That will be much easier with better imagery, onboard processing, and especially with MTI to track moving ice.
To Saper, though, that’s just the start. Their concept study features a larger project called “the RADARSAT Constellation Series.” AstroCom is proposing “four launch campaigns over 16 years with progressively more capable spacecraft and progressively higher mission performance.” The first launch would replace RCM, and the three subsequent launches would add more satellites on different orbital planes.
Saper said that adding more orbital planes will increase the tempo of radar imaging, and allow for imaging outside of the current “dawn and dusk” images provided by RCM and most other SAR satellites. That would better fulfill a wider variety of clients’ needs, including better ice detection. It will also allow for introducing ever-more-capable satellites, potentially including extra bays for third-party usage.
Saper believes that Canada needs to think big, and embrace expanded satellite networks with expanded capabilities. That will help the CSA better fulfill Earth observation requirements across a variety of different government departments. And Saper is confident that will help convince the CSA that AstroCom’s approach is ambitious and flexible enough to choose to bring the RADARSAT Constellation Series to life.
But will it work?
Can three people heading a “virtual corporation” of subcontractors really pull this off?
Saper believes so. He thinks the Federal government and its departments have an “appetite for change,” that AstroCom’s agility is what will give them the edge in fulfilling that appetite, and that this is why they will be “the choice of the eight visions” in the EOSC project.
He did grant, however, that they’d have to make changes if their plan was adopted by the CSA. Saper said that they would almost certainly have to spin off the project into a separate and more traditional business. That business would then need to seek out private-sector investment in the project, as AstroCom is closely held. Saper admits that this would be a “place for learning.”
Saper also admits that there’s skepticism within the government about whether their small team can get it done, and other confidential sources have said much the same. What happens if they lose critical individual subcontractors to retirement or employment elsewhere? Or if a corporate subcontractor goes out of business for reasons that AstroCom cannot do anything about, or is acquired by another company altogether? And could billions of dollars of satellite launches be held up by a simple contractual dispute?
Saper is confident that, should they be chosen, they would be in a position where “you can get all the facilities and expertise you need.” Yet one could reasonably ask why you’d make that choice, instead of simply seeking out the resources of a company like MDA.
AstroCom’s agility may well let them be flexible enough to adapt as needed, though. “We have a lot of radar talent in Canada, but not enough to waste.” If a contractor’s talent becomes unavailable, other contractor’s talent could be brought to bear. If AstroCom needs to find other partners, and they know how to find them. If they need to create a spinoff, they’ll create it. That’s certainly a project management challenge, but AstroCom doesn’t lack management experience.
If anything, this would play to AstroCom’s strengths. Mike Stott is a legend in the industry, with more experience building satellites than nearly anyone else in the country. Saper is a SAR expert with the executive experience to build up Vantage Point International and eventually sell it to C-CORE. He was also an AstroCom subcontractor himself at one point, so he knows all sides of these relationships. And while Chamberland may be AstroCom’s “treasurer,” he brings enormous experience in SAR and digital signal processing.
AstroCom may only be three people, but it may well be the right three people. That will be up to government to decide.