Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) image of Victoria, Canada
Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) image of Victoria, Canada. Credit: NASA/JPL.

The Canadian Space Agency has awarded Space Alpha Insights Corp. a $2 million Space Technology Development Program contract to develop Synthetic Aperture Radar satellite on-board processing technology.

In an earlier version of this story SpaceQ said that EarthDaily Analytics was awarded this contract. While technically true from the Canadian government perspective, the actual contract will eventually be awarded to SpaceAlpha Insights Corp. This is the result of the bankruptcy of UrtheCast where some assets were retained by EarthDaily Analytics, formerly UrtheCast, and other assets were acquired by Space Alpha Insights Corp.

The contract is the fifth award from the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) procurement notice for seven priority technologies (PT) announced last November and covers PT 5, SAR High Speed On-Board Processing.

Background

The CSA provided the following background for this Priority Technology:

The need for on-board processing (OBP) of data for space-based missions continues to grow due to the increasing quantity of data being acquired by satellites along with operational requirements calling for rapid response to collected data. Processing data on-board a satellite can provide additional advantages which include improved payload performance, reduced consumption, and decreased data latency. The advantages of OBP are especially pertinent to Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) satellite missions as they typically acquire radar images at high data rates and require significant processing before the information can be extracted.

Accordingly, two types of future SAR missions have been identified that could benefit from OBP:

  • i) Earth Observation (EO) Missions: OBP could be used to extract information in near- real-time (NRT) and react quickly and automatically to this information. E.g., Image data could be acquired over a flooded area using a large swath and coarse resolution, processed on-board, and analyzed to identify critical areas in NRT and subsequently task high-resolution images.
  • ii) Interplanetary Mission: OBP could reduce the volume of data by a factor of 10 or more and could allow the spacecraft to make autonomous decisions. E.g., A SAR satellite in orbit around Mars could image the surface, process the data, analyze the results, and then transfer only pertinent data to Earth.

The focus of this study will primarily be on the SAR EO Missions, however it is highly desirable (goal) that the proposed solution could also be applicable to a SAR Mars mission.

Examples of recent activities related to high speed processing in space are:

The aim of this work is to develop prototype processor hardware capable of demonstrating OBP in a relevant environment (TRL 6). Although this study will focus on SAR-related OBP applications, it will be important to demonstrate that the proposed hardware can also support a wide range of high-speed processing algorithms, e.g. Artificial Intelligence algorithms that allow for rapid reaction to acquired images.

If the technology is proven successful, it is envisioned that this work will produce a technology that is ready to be incorporated in Phase B of a future mission.

Targeted Missions

This technology is primarily targeting Earth Observation SAR missions and will be pertinent to the Earth Observation SAR Continuity (EOSC) study. Target applications include environment monitoring (ice, snow, water, soil, forest, etc.), ship detection, and natural disaster management.

A secondary target mission for this technology is a potential, future ice-mapping mission on Mars with SAR.

Other priority technology contract awards

Since late April the CSA has awarded four other contracts of the seven priority technologies procurement notice.

Boucher is an entrepreneur, writer, editor & publisher. He is the founder of SpaceQ Media and Director of Digital Platforms for SpaceNews. Boucher has 25+ years working in various roles in the space industry and a total of 30 years as a technology entrepreneur including creating Canada's first internet directory and search engine.

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