Radarsat 1

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General

Designation	23710 / 95059A
Launch date	4 Nov 1995
Country of origin	Canada
Operator	Canadian Space Agency
Mission	Remote sensing
Perigee/Apogee	783/787 km (polar orbit)
Inclination	98.6°
Period	100 min
Launch vehicle	Delta 2 #229
Mass at launch	2750 kg

Launched under the MELVS contract. The satellite is worth C$640 million and the launch about $50 million.

The Canadian Space Agency built and operated the satellite; NASA provided the launch. In exchange, U.S. government agencies had access to all archived Radarsat 1 data and have approximately 15% of the satellite's observing time. Radarsat international was the commercial distributor of Radarsat data worldwide. Lockheed Martin had distribution rights in the United States.

In Sep 1999 the primary pitch momentum wheel started suffering from excessive friction and temperature, and as a result, control was shifted to a back-up wheel. This back-up pitch momentum wheel developed similar problems in Nov 2002 and was taken off-line on 27 Nov, leaving the satellite in a safe and controlled tumble. The service was restored in late December.

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End of life

Out of service	29 Mar 2013?
Cause	Technical anomaly
Decay

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External resources

http://www.ball.com/aerospace/radarsat.html

sat-index articles

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Contact

Canadian Space Agency
Tel: +1-514-926-4436
Fax: +1-514-926-4973

Technical data

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Specifications

Prime contractor	Spar Aerospace (Canada)
Platform
Mass at launch	3150 kg?
Payload mass	1500 kg
Dimension
Solar array	18 m span
Stabilization	3-axis
DC power	2200 W
Design lifetime	5 years

15 m long x 1.5 m wide Synthetic Aperture C-band Radar
Resolution: between 30 m and 90 m
On-board storage: 96 MB

Uplink: S-band (2 kbps)
Downlink: S-band (2.5, 2, 4, 32 or 128 kbps)
Another downlink for science data is at: 2230.000 MHz

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