MacDonald Dettwiler and Associates Ltd. (MDA) selected Magellan Aerospace’s MAC-200 small satellite bus for the Cassiope mission, Magellan said.

The terms of the 18 million Canadian dollar ($14.5 million) contract call for Magellan to design, assemble, integrate and test the MAC-200. The project is a follow-on to a contract award from the Canadian Space Agency, under which Magellan was selected to design the MAC-200 multi-mission satellite bus.

The Cassiope mission will demonstrate a potential new information delivery service called Cascade that will allow very large amounts of information to be delivered around the globe and also will include a scientific payload carrying a suite of eight instruments to study sun-Earth relations. The Cassiope mission is scheduled for a late 2007 launch.