spacetoday.net: Falcon 9 launches Canadian radar imaging satellites

Falcon 9 launches Canadian radar imaging satellites

Posted: Sun, Jun 16, 2019, 10:12 AM ET (1412 GMT)
Falcon 9 launch of Radarsat Constellation Mission (SpaceX)

SpaceX launched three Canadian radar imaging satellites Wednesday. The Falcon 9 lifted off on schedule from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California at 10:17 am EDT (1417 GMT) and deployed the three Radarsat Constellation Mission (RCM) satellites into sun-synchronous orbits an hour later. The rocket's first stage, which previously launched the company's Crew Dragon spacecraft on a test flight in March, landed back at the launch site. RCM is designed to provide improved synthetic aperture radar imagery over the existing Radarsat-2, including faster revisits. Unlike Radarsat-2, which is operated by Maxar, the Canadian government owns the full imaging capacity of the RCM constellation.