Posted: Thu, Aug 1, 2013, 6:37 AM ET (1037 GMT)

SpaceX announced this week that it had won a contract to launch a constellation of Canadian radar satellites in 2018. SpaceX will launch the three satellites of the Radarsat Constellation Mission (RCM) on a Falcon 9 in 2018, under terms of the launch reservation contract with MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates (MDA) announced Tuesday. MDA is building the three RCM satellites as successors to the Canadian government's Radarsat 1 and 2 spacecraft, which provide radar imagery of the Earth. MDA is also the customer for SpaceX's next launch, of the CASSIOPE satellite, scheduled for September.