MDA contracted to offer operational support for Canadian maritime surveillance system

Canada’s Department of National Defence (DND) has exercised its third renewal option to allow MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates (MDA) to continue to offer operational support for the country’s maritime surveillance system.

The exercised option is valued at $2.4m for MDA, under which it will provide support until March 2016.

Under the deal, the company will continue to offer operational support for the east and west coast RADARSAT-2 ground systems, which support the Polar Epsilon near-real time ship detection (NRTSD) system.

The NRTSD system is a broad-area surveillance system, which was provided by MDA to DND in 2012.

It is involved in providing space-based, day and night, all-weather maritime surveillance information of Canada’s Arctic, Atlantic and Pacific oceans. The system is said to include global high-resolution surveillance capabilities to support deployed Canadian forces.

MDA has also signed a six-year contract with the European Space Agency to provide RADARSAT-2 satellite information to Copernicus, a program funded by the European Union.

The contract is valued at $29m, including an initial firm order of $14.6m.

The RADARSAT-2 information is being used to provide mission critical information on sea ice in the Baltic Sea and Antarctic Ocean throughout the ice seasons, in a bid to support disaster relief, improve the safety of maritime navigation, monitor assets, and support various mapping applications.