RADARSAT-1 : RADARSAT-1 was the first government satellite to be constructed since the Communications Technology Satellite launched in 1976, and was Canada's first Earth Observation satellite. A joint project between federal government, provincial governments and private industry, RADARSAT-1 provided a new instrument to Earth Observation missions.
The Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) instrument allowed RADARSAT-1 to acquire imagery of the Earth's surface regardless of atmospheric conditions; the powerful microwave based instrument could look through cloud cover, smoke, fog, and darkness. This allowed the satellite to collect consistent information about the conditions of the Earth's surface for many different uses including, but not limited to, agriculture, cartography, hydrology, forestry, oceanography, geology, ice and ocean monitoring, arctic surveillance, detection of ocean oil slicks, and disaster monitoring and aid. One of the first missions that RADARSAT-1 accomplished was the first complete mapping of Antarctica in 1997.
Due to the orbit that the satellite was placed in, RADARSAT-1 would fly over the same location in the same manner every 24 days. This allowed for comparisons of the imagery between one pass and another to determine and identify changes.
RADARSAT was launched on November 4, 1995 from Vandenburg Air Force Base in California on a Delta-II 7920-10 rocket provided by the United States, as their contribution to the project. Originally planned for a five year lifetime, RADARSAT-1 finally failed on March 29, 2013 after more than 17 years of operation.
Data that was collected by RADARSAT-1 was distributed by RADARSAT International until 2005, when the data was distributed by MDA Geospatial Services International.
Specifications:
Height- 3.55 m
Width- 2.46 m
Length- 15 m
Mass- 2750 kg
COSPAR Id- 1995-059A
Period- 100.70 minutes
Apogee- 821 km
Perigee- 793 km
Inclination- 98.6 degrees
Launched- 04-November-1995 at 14:22 UTC
Lost- 29-March-2013
