The supplemental RADARSAT+ satellite announced by Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry François-Philippe Champagne at Spacebound 2023 will be compatible with the existing RADARSAT Constellation Mission (RCM). But it will be more advanced than the current three RCM satellites now in service.
That’s the news from Canadian Space Agency President Lisa Campbell. She spoke with SpaceQ after her 2023 keynote address to Space Canada’s conference in Ottawa on October 18, 2023.
According to Campbell, the supplemental RCM satellite will be more advanced than the original RCM trio of Earth Observation (EO) satellites because “technology has evolved” since they were launched in 2019. Nevertheless, the need for the supplemental satellite was anticipated back then, because the CSA knew that the RCM’s seven year life spans meant that “the risks would start to increase by 2026,” said Campbell.
“That doesn’t mean anything will happen,” she continued. “It just means that we need to be ready for it. So we’re going to solicit industry support for a fourth satellite that’s compatible. It may not be exactly the same as technology. Maybe there’s stuff out there that’s better, that’s compatible with the existing ones and can strengthen them until we can get that fourth generation of EO satellites in place.”
Speaking of the fourth generation EO satellites envisioned by RADARSAT+, Lisa Campbell emphasised that the CSA and the Canadian government are open to industry participation in this initiative. “Part of the three years of work that we did leading up to today’s announcement was to consult industry on what’s out there,” she told SpaceQ. “What’s interesting is that a lot of satellite observation capabilities have become commercial. It used to be the domain of public space agencies. Now there are business offerings.”
Although Campbell acknowledged that some aspects of Canadian EO will need to remain under some form of government control for RADARSAT+ — “there’s over 40 services to Canadians that depend on our Constellation mission,” she said, “and that’ll probably increase” — “we’re really open-minded.”.As a result, it seems safe to say that the upcoming RADARSAT+ portfolio project will rely on a mix of publicly and privately-owned equipment, with the opportunity for industry to show the CSA how much it can do to help shoulder the load.
As for the impact of Treasury Board’s order to federal departments and agencies to find savings in their budgets, including the CSA? Lisa Campbell was diplomatic in her response when asked how it would affect the agency’s many projects.
“We’re a public agency and we’re grateful to government and taxpayers for funding what we do, and we take it really seriously,” Campbell told SpaceQ. “We cannot waste a precious dollar of that. We have to be efficient. We have to make sure that we’re leveraging that for the benefit of Canada, both in our deep space exploration and in using our Earth Observation capabilities for the country. We look at the cost of living and inflation. These are realities every Canadian is facing, and that informs our work as well.”
- Read our previous stories from the annual Spacebound conference.