The Canadian Space Agency has awarded MDA a contract worth $42 million to provide satellite flight operations and data management services for assets under its responsibility.
According to the Public Works and Government Services Canada procurement notice which we posted on March 31, 2020, “the Canadian Space Agency (CSA), is looking to put in place a contract for the provision of Satellite Flight Operations and Data Management Services, including spacecraft health monitoring and control, operational analysis, basic system maintenance, data order handing, image quality control and data processing and archiving for the satellite missions under its responsibility and operated at the Multi-Mission Control Center (MCC) of the Canadian Space Agency (CSA). Missions potentially addressed in the work include, but are not limited to, SCISAT, NEOSSat, M3MSat and RADARSAT Constellation Mission (RCM), assuming all are operating at the start of the Contract.”
The procurement notice indicated that the resulting contract would be for a period of three years “plus 2 one-year irrevocable options allowing Canada to extend the term of the contract.” We contacted MDA to determine if the contract award was indeed for three years with the options but had yet to hear back at time of publication.
Of note, the procurement notice also stated that a resulting contract would include “RADARSAT Data Services, which covers Government part of data management (order handling) for the RADARSAT-2 mission.” MDA owns the RADARSAT-2 satellite and has already been providing flight operations for the CSA under a separate public private partnership agreement.
Also of note, future missions that are currently being planned might be added to or subject to the contract.