Canada's Bristol Aerospace has won a contract from the national space agency to build the country's first science satellite since 1971.
Called SCISAT 1, the craft will be launched in 2002 to study ozone depletion in the upper atmosphere, with particular emphasis on the atmosphere over Canada and the Arctic. The science instrument will be built by the University of Waterloo at Quebec City.
Meanwhile, the European Space Agency (ESA) has awarded Canadian company SED Systems a contract to build a 35m (115ft)-diameter telemetry, tracking and command centre at New Norcia, 140km (85 miles) north of Perth, Western Australia. It will monitor and control ESA's Rosetta spacecraft en route to the comet Witanen via Earth and Mars fly-bys after launch in 2003.
The New Norcia antenna will be ESA's first deep-space network facility to be controlled by its operations centre in Darmstadt, Germany. A smaller antenna is located at Perth, while others are sited in Belgium, French Guiana, Spain and Sweden.
Source: Flight International