Airbus Defence and Space — a division of Airbus Group formed by combining the business activities of Cassidian, Astrium and Airbus Military — has signed an agreement with the Canada Centre for Mapping and Earth Observation (CCMEO) providing Canadian governmental and institutional data users free access to TerraSAR-X and TanDEM-X satellite imagery for pre-operational use.
A delegation from the Northwest Territories (NWT) of Canada, led by the Honourable Robert R. McLeod, Premier of NWT, along with senior officials from the Government of Canada recently visited Airbus Defence and Space in Ottobrunn, Germany. On this occasion, the long-lasting relation between Airbus Defence and Space and the Government of Canada was reinforced by the signature of this agreement.
The main goal of the agreement is to support current efforts of Canadian agencies working on the development of operational monitoring concepts that exploit the benefits of using Canada’s C-Band radar mission together with the German X-Band satellites for maritime surveillance, disaster management and environmental monitoring. Additionally the free data provision will support study purposes and capacity building through professional training and education.
The TerraSAR-X and TanDEM-X radar satellite missions were established in 2007 and 2010 respectively as a Public-Private Partnership between the German Space Agency (DLR) and the Geo-Intelligence Programme Line of Airbus Defence and Space. Since the launch, the missions benefited from Canada’s Inuvik Satellite Station Facility (ISSF), which thanks to its location above the Arctic Circle provides access to most of the satellite’s orbits in a timely manner. The new Mackenzie-Valley-Fibre-Link currently under development for Inuvik will be providing further shortened access time to data as well as Near-Real-Time monitoring for large parts of Northern Canada in support of maritime surveillance and natural disaster monitoring.