Radarsat 1

Canada

International Sat. n°:

Canadian satellite n°: 18

Launch data:

Designation	23710 / 95059A
Launch date	04 Nov 1995 - 14:22 UT
Launch site	Va, SLC2W
Launch vehicle	Delta 7920-10 (#D229)
Mission	Remote sensing, Earth observation
High sun-synchronous Earth orbit:
Perigee/Apogee	783/787 km (polar orbit)
Inclination	98.6°
Period	100 min
Mass at launch	2750 kg

Artist's concept of the Radarsat 1 satellite. Credit: Canadian Space Agency

Launched under the MELVS contract.
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 data and have approximately 15% of the satellite's observing time. Radarsat International, Inc. was the commercial distributor of Radarsat data worldwide. Lockheed Martin had distribution rights in the United States.

Specifications

Prime contractor	Spar Aerospace (Prime), Ball Aerospace (Bus)
Platform	BCP-4000
Operator	Canadian Space Agency (CSA)
Mass at launch	2750 kg
Payload mass	1500 kg
Dimension
Equipment	C-Band SAR
Solar array	2 deployable solar arrays (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

End of live:

Out of service:	March 2013
Cause:	out of battery power
Re-entered date:
Lifetime:

Mission details:

Canada's Radarsat 1 satellite stopped communicating with Earth in late March 2013, and officials fear the country's oldest Earth observation satellite may be lost for good
Controllers last heard from the spacecraft March 29, when engineers noticed Radarsat 1 was in safe mode, a semi-dormant state in which the spacecraft conserves energy, according to Michel Doyon, flight operations manager at the Canadian Space Agency.
But soon after controllers noticed Radarsat 1 was in safe mode, the satellite went silent.
"We lost contact because it was out of battery power, and since then we've been trying various recovery procedures," Doyon said in an interview. "We have a team of experts looking at all aspects of this anomaly to try to find the root cause and potential remedial actions." The satellite launched more than 17 years ago, surpassing its five-year design life and establishing Canada as a world leader in radar imaging from orbit.

Ref: #7, #12, #83 - update: 14.05.13