Live Your Life ! SpaceX RADARSAT Constellation Mission SpaceX has completed a static fire of Falcon 9 ahead of the company’s second California launch of 2019, also set to include the second ever use of SpaceX’s West Coast landing zone
Canada‘s newest #RCMSatellites are ready to launch on June 12. They were recently installed on their dispenser and inserted into the rocket fairing at @SpaceX facilities in Vandenberg Air Force Base. More about RCM: https://t.co/KsYUzfQPMd
@MDA_Maxar pic.twitter.com/g5RNf0nejz— CanadianSpaceAgency (@csa_asc) June 6, 2019
RCM RADARSAT Constellation Mission
The successor (and complementary) mission to RADARSAT-2 will be the RADARSAT Constellation Mission (RCM), consisting of three (small) spacecraft (with a potential to increase the number to six). RCM is an evolution of the RADARSAT program with improved operational use of SAR data and improved system reliability. The overall objective of RCM is to provide C-band SAR data continuity for the RADARSAT-2 users, as well as adding a new series of applications enabled through the constellation approach. The SAR imagery is required by various Canadian government users (including the Canadian Forces) at frequent revisit rates (high temporal resolution). RCM will primarily collect wide-area data with an average daily revisit of Canada and daily access to 95% of the world. The main uses of the RCM data are expected to be in the areas of
• Maritime surveillance/national security – which covers a broad range of potential applications areas, including ice and iceberg monitoring, marine winds, oil pollution monitoring and response, and ship detection.
• Disaster management (mitigation, warning, response and recovery)
• Ecosystem monitoring (agriculture, wetlands, forestry and coastal change monitoring).
The primary areas of interest are the landmass of Canada and its surrounding Arctic, Pacific and Atlantic maritime areas (Canada has a coastline of 243,772 km in length, the longest of any country in the world). The images and derived information are required to be provided to Canadian government users at frequent area coverage rates.
Revisit and Re-look: RCM will provide a four-day exact revisit, allowing coherent change detection using an InSAR mode. It will also provide an average daily global re-look capability in medium 50 m resolution mode. Most of the applications considered require re-look at least daily and an exact revisit once to twice weekly (interferometric change detection applications). The very frequent re-look capability is critical to certain disaster management applications. Find More info
Complexities aside, things are looking good as SpaceX enters into the final stages of launch preparations. All three satellites – weighing ~4300 kg (9500 lb) total – have been encapsulated inside the payload fairing, B1051 has completed a routine wet dress rehearsal and static fire, and SpaceX technicians are likely attaching the fairing to the integrated Falcon 9 as we speak. Meanwhile, despite an apparent regulation preventing SpaceX from landing boosters at its Californian LZ-4 pad during harbour seal pupping season (“March to June”), B1051 is expected to land at LZ-4 and drone ship Just Read The Instructions remains in port.
The launch is tentatively scheduled for 10:17 a.m. Eastern time on Wednesday. It will be shown live on the SpaceX YouTube channel.
Once in space, there is a testing and commissioning phase. The Canadian Space Agency hopes to have the satellites operational by September.