HOW DOES CANADA WITH A LANDMASS OF 9.985 MILLION
SQUARE KILOMETRES AND A COASTLINE STRETCHING FOR
243,042 KILOMETRES (AND COVERING THREE OCEANS),
SURVEY ITS SOVEREIGN TERRITORY? ADDING TO THE
CHALLENGE, THE BULK OF THE NATION'S POPULATION OF
37 MILLION PEOPLE ARE LOCATED WITHIN 200 KM OF ITS
SOUTHERN BORDER, LEAVING VAST NORTHERN EXPANSES
OF ITS SOVEREIGN TERRITORY, SPARSELY POPULATED AND
THUS ARDUOUS TO MONITOR.
I
mage 1 on page 14 shows a night-
time view of the continental United
States (U.S.) and Canada taken from
space. It illustrates very graphically
where the concentrations of popula-
tions are located. The outline of the con-
tinental U.S. is easily identifiable, whereas
the vast majority of Canada is barely vis-
ible, accentuating its sparsely populated
northern regions. Yet, as a sovereign na-
tion, the Canadian government must pos-
sess full control over the affairs within all
of its geographical area.
Such is the challenge facing the Cana-
dian government, which has responded
12 AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2021 www.vanguardcanada.com
SPACE
SPACE
Surveillance from
BY JEFF DOOLING
DND GOES
IT ALONE
by stating that it will continue to "acquire
space capabilities meant to improve situ-
ational awareness" over its territory and it
will further "invest in and employ a range
of space capabilities, including space situa-
tional awareness, space-based earth obser-
vation, and maritime domain awareness,"
to meet its national and global Earth
Observation (EO) requirements. To that
end, the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF)
were tasked to "acquire…space-based sur-
veillance assets to significantly expand its
Joint Intelligence, Surveillance, and Re-
connaissance (ISR) capacity."
On 12 June 2019, the RADAR-
SAT Constellation Mission (RCM) was
launched providing Canada with a three
spacecraft constellation of EO satellites
that supply the Canadian Government
with a range of ISR data supporting cli-
mate change research, agriculture moni-
toring, maritime surveillance, and Arctic
sovereignty monitoring, to name just a
few. Designed primarily for Canadian do-
mestic EO requirements, the RCM has
a good revisit rate of the Arctic region
and of the maritime approaches to North
America.
A satellite's size, weight, fuel capacity,
and battery life all play a part in its expect-
