Surrey Satellite Technology Limited in the United Kingdom has been awarded a contract from Canadian company MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates Ltd. (MDA) to deliver a satellite platform as part of the Sapphire space object surveillance program. MDA has been selected as the mission prime and will lead the Sapphire mission team that will include SSTL and COM DEV of Cambridge, Ontario, who will build the payload. As part of their contract, SSTL will manufacture a Ground Control Center and install it in Canada.
The mission will provide a satellite-based Resident Space Object (RSO) observing service that will provide accurate tracking data on deep space orbiting objects. SAPPHIRE will feature a space-based data collection
platform for continuous surveillance of manmade objects in medium to high Earth orbits (6,000 to 40,000 km). The data collected will be processed by a ground-based system and the results will be used to update the U.S. Satellite Catalogue that is used by both NORAD and Canada to provide space situational awareness. The two year program is part of a $65 million contract from Canada’s Department of National Defence (DND), with potential to extend the contract to cover mission support, operations and maintenance—Guildford, United Kingdom
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