Canada’s pace in space

With the Minister of Defence currently reviewing a new space policy, Col. Andre Dupuis, Canadian Forces director of space development, was limited in what he could say about it, but he assured the DEFSEC audience in Halifax that it had a “whole of government” approach as well as buy-in from all the departments that were involved in its drafting.

He was able to deliver a comprehensive review of Canada’s current military space activities and its immediate future. The current lack of persistence of today’s single Radarsat 2 satellite will in great measure be remedied by the launch of three more satellites to complete the Radarsat constellation, he said.

Commanders in the field, of course, are usually focused on tools they can use right away and Canadian Forces now have a very practical capability to quickly and easily see when they are coming under the view of an eye in space. Soldiers and sailors can select the satellites whose gaze they want to be aware of, and the system delivers a visual display of green and red bars, indicating exactly when the coast is clear. “That’s a pretty practical tool that’s now online on our classified network,” Dupuis said.

Canada is also acquiring a “slice” of the output from the US MILSATCOM communications satellite, a system he said delivers a very reasonable data rate.

In the push to deliver information to the frontline user, he said, satellite services are very much in a competition with other data streams. In the future, Dupuis noted, that challenge will only grow as the torrent of information from platforms like the F-35 and UAVs begins to fill the pipe.

The satellite group is looking at what war-fighters need to do their jobs. When the systems can scan a specific area and plot many variables, Dupuis said, “we can tell you what the best times are to drop a bomb, for example.” A challenge is to give users easier ways to access that data.

The CF has already pushed satellite services close to the frontline in Afghanistan and delivered a great deal of value to ISAF; Dupuis was keen to talk about it, “but I can’t do it in this forum,” he said.

In summary, Dupuis said, mostly in areas where satellite is the only answer, “we are closing capability gaps.”