If all goes to plan, the Department of National Defence’s (DND) trio of ‘Gray Jay’ microsatellites will be launched into Low Earth orbit in the fourth quarter of 2023.
The plan is for the Gray Jay constellation to provide DND with remote surveillance and situational awareness in Canada’s Arctic. The microsatellites are being built under a $15 million contract by the University of Toronto Institute for Aerospace Studies’ Space Flight Laboratory (SFL) in partnership with the Department of National Defence/Canadian Armed Forces, A.U.G. Signals Ltd. and Space Strategies Consulting Ltd (SSCL). Each measuring 30 x 30 x 40 cm in size and weighing between 20-30kg, the Gray Jays will operate using SFL’s DEFIANT scalable satellite bus platform.
“The Gray Jay microsatellites will be launched by SpaceX as a secondary payload on their Falcon 9 launcher,” said DND Communications Advisor Margaret Sambol. “The launch will be from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida.” Once on station, DND plans to fly the three Gray Jays in formation.
The planned orbit altitude for the Gray Jay constellation will be within 500-600km, with the exact orbit being determined by the SpaceX rocket’s primary payload). To detect airborne and surface activity below them in the Arctic, the Gray Jay microsatellites will have onboard RF sensors capable of detecting emission across multiple bandwidths including AIS, ADS-B, S-band, L-band, and X-band. The Gray Jays will also have infrared sensing capability via their onboard optics and camera.
“As per contract, SFL will be commissioning the microsatellite constellation and performing demonstration operations for Defence Research and Development Canada (DRDC), including daily gathering of the mission data,” Sambol said.
The Gray Jay trio of microsatellites is the latest DND venture into this budget-priced yet effective technology. “Microsatellites are a class of spacecraft that have been used, and are still being used, by DND to demonstrate enabling technologies and the military utility of space mission concepts,” said Sambol. “For example, NEOSSat. which was launched in 2013, is currently being used by DRDC to experiment with new space surveillance concepts using a space-based optical telescope. M3MSat, which was launched in 2016, was designed to test technologies to collect Automatic Identification System (AIS) messages from low Earth orbit.” After its mission was completed, the federal government sold M3MSat to Myriota Canada.
The cost-effectiveness of microsatellites has made them a welcome addition to DND’s arsenal, she added, but not the only one: “Microsatellites will remain in the suite of satellite options available to DND for its future space needs and requirements,” Sambol noted. Meanwhile, DRDC is also conducting ongoing research and development in microsatellites for Space Domain Awareness, there are no launches scheduled for the next year beyond Gray Jay “and no new contracts have been awarded to date.”