spacetoday.net: RADARSAT-1 declared lost

Posted: Sat, May 11, 2013, 9:12 AM ET (1312 GMT)
RADARSAT-1 (CSA)

A Canadian radar imaging satellite that malfunctioned over a month ago has been declared lost, the Canadian Space Agency announced this week. RADARSAT-1 suffered a technical anomaly on March 29 that disabled the spacecraft. On Thursday, the CSA announced that, after numerous attempts to resolve the problem, the spacecraft's mission was declared over. Officials warned when the problem was first reported that the odds of fixing the issue, thought to be with the spacecraft's power system, were low. RADARSAT-1 launched in 1995 on what was planned to be a five-year mission, providing all-weather imagery through its synthetic aperture radar instrument. Canada has another radar imaging satellite, RADARSAT-2, in operation, and is planning a follow-on RADARSAT Constellation Mission for later this decade.