Boeing has been awarded a contract from Canada's MacDonald Dettwiler to launch the country's second Radarsat satellite from Vandenberg AFB, California, in April 2003 aboard a Delta II booster.
The 2,600kg (5,720lb) satellite will be placed into a 800km (495 mile), 98.6° sun-synchronous orbit. Radarsat-2 is funded jointly by MacDonald Dettwiler and the Canadian Space Agency. The satellite will provide a worldwide Earth observation service in conjunction with Radarsat-1, which was launched in 1995. Radarsat-2 will feature an advanced synthetic aperture radar system and an all-weather, 24h viewing imager with a ground resolution of 3m (10ft), compared with Radarsat-1's 10m ground resolution.
Earth-observation data collected by the Radarsat-1 satellite have provided valuable information for disaster relief operations, ice navigation, agriculture, mapping, forestry and coastal monitoring.
• Allied TechSystems has successfully completed the last of three static test firings of the new solid propulsion Graphite Epoxy Motor (GEM-60) designed for use on the new Boeing Delta IV fleet. The first production GEM-60s will be delivered in 2001 in preparation for the maiden flight of the vehicle, which will fly in five configurations. Three Medium Plus versions of the Delta IV will use two or four combinations of GEM-60s.
Source: Flight International
