The Boeing Co. [BA] won a contract to launch Canada’s Radarsat 2 satellite aboard a Delta 2 rocket in three years. The launch is planned for April 2003, from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif.

Simultaneously with Boeing’s announcement of the launch services contract, MacDonald Dettwiler & Associates, the owner of the current Radarsat 1 and eventual owner of Radarsat 2, received about $71.85 million in additional funds from the Canadian Space Agency to pay for the launch.

Although Boeing has a policy of not revealing the value of its launch service contracts, and did not in this case, MacDonald Dettwiler said most of the additional funds would go toward the launch. Some will be used to pay for modifications to the satellite so it can be accepted by the Delta 2, MacDonald Dettwiler said.

The company is under contract to the Canadian Space Agency for the construction and launch of Radarsat 2, which will carry the world’s most-advanced synthetic aperture radar when it is launched. Once in orbit and operational, MacDonald Dettwiler will be the sole owner, but in return for the Canadian government’s support of the program, the company will supply its images to Canadian government agencies.

These can be used for ice detection and mapping, monitoring natural resources, the environment and climatic changes, disaster management and search and rescue missions. As a follow-on to Radarsat 1, Radarsat 2 will provide a sharp improvement in all-weather, 24-hour imaging. It will provide a resolution of three meters, compared with 10 meters from Radarsat 1.

MacDonald Dettwiler is the prime contractor to the Canadian Space Agency for Radarsat 2. Alenia Spazio is building the satellite bus in Rome. The Montreal-based Space and Technology Group of EMS Technologies Inc. [ELMG] of Norcross, Ga., is supplying the radar payload, as it did for Radarsat 1.

The extendable support structure for the radar antenna is being built by MacDonald Dettwiler Robotics, the supplier of the Space Shuttle’s robotic arm and follow-on systems for the International Space Station. MacDonald Dettwiler, which is based in the Vancouver suburb of Richmond, B.C., is a majority-owned subsidiary of Orbital Sciences Corp. [ORB].