RADARSAT-2
| Mission type | Radar imaging |
|---|---|
| Operator | MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates |
| COSPAR ID | 2007-061A |
| SATCAT no. | 32382 |
| Website |
mdacorporation |
| Mission duration | designed life: 7.25 years Elapsed: 9 years, 2 months, 23 days |
| Spacecraft properties | |
| Bus | Prima |
| Manufacturer |
MDA Thales Alenia Space- Italy (TAS-I) |
| Launch mass | 2,300 kg (5,100 lb) |
| Start of mission | |
| Launch date | 14 December 2007, 13:17:34 UTC |
| Rocket | Soyuz-FG/Fregat |
| Launch site | Baikonur 31/6 |
| Contractor | Starsem |
| Orbital parameters | |
| Reference system | Geocentric |
| Regime | Sun-synchronous |
mdacorporation
RADARSAT-2 is an Earth observation satellite that was successfully launched December 14, 2007 for the Canadian Space Agency by Starsem, using a Soyuz FG launch vehicle, from Kazakhstan's Baikonur Cosmodrome. RADARSAT-2 was previously assembled, integrated and tested at the David Florida Laboratory near Ottawa, Ontario before the start of its launch campaign.
The end of the spacecraft and ground segment commissioning period was declared on April 27, 2008 after which routine commercial operation started. The Satellite has a C-band Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) with multiple polarization modes, including a fully polarimetric mode in which HH, HV, VV and VH polarized data are acquired. Its highest resolution is 1 m in Spotlight mode (3 m in Ultra Fine mode). In ScanSAR Wide Beam mode the SAR has a nominal swath width of 500 km and an imaging resolution of 100 m. Its left looking capability allows the spacecraft the unique capability to image the Antarctic on a routine basis providing data in support of scientific research.
The prime contractor on the project is MacDonald Dettwiler and Associates (MDA), who have previously built projects such as the Canadarm. Other collaborating companies included EMS Technologies and Alenia. EMS Space & Technology/Montreal division was bought by MDA in 2005. RADARSAT-2 is owned and operated by MDA.
RADARSAT-2 is a follow-on to RADARSAT-1 which mission terminated in April 2013. It has the same orbit (798 km altitude sun-synchronous orbit with 6 p.m. ascending node and 6 a.m. descending node). Some of the orbit characteristics are 24 days repeat cycle (=343 orbits), 14.29 orbits per day, each orbit being 100.75 minutes duration. It is filling a wide variety of application, including sea ice mapping and ship routing, iceberg detection, agricultural crop monitoring, marine surveillance for ship and pollution detection, terrestrial defence surveillance and target identification, geological mapping, mine monitoring, land use mapping, wetlands mapping, topographic mapping.
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