Radarsat-2 on guard for thee Canada Space Agency

Against all odds, somebody in Ottawa heeded the voice of dissent in this winter of much discontent and did something about it. Back in January, Digtal Journal reported the impending stealth sale of MDA. the company which created the Canadarm and the uber-sophisto Radarsat-2 satellite. The deal was being done with a US company,ATK, a major player in the arms game. Understandably, this caused an alarmed alliance of concerned citizens,including some of the company's Canadian employees and high level scientists, to rail against the coming of this blight. Seems the level of concern is finally being appreciated in Ottawa. In a departure from its usual glacial pace, the feds acted quickly to put a 30 day freeze on the deal while it goes back to the big brains for analysis. Industry Minister Jim Prentice informed U.S.-based weapons and rocket manufacturer Alliant Techsystems, or ATK, on Thursday that he wouldn't meet the Saturday deadline to approve or reject the company's plan to acquire the satellite and space businesses of Richmond, B.C.,-based MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates Ltd., or MDA. Critics of the sale, including former Canadian Space Agency head Marc Garneau, had argued the deal handed over taxpayer-funded technology and, in the case of Radarsat-2, gave away technology designed to protect Canada's sovereignty. MDA is Canada's largest space technology firm but has decided to focus on its faster-growing information products business, which serves the property market with specialized mapping products. The sale has raised concerns in part because of ATK's weapons business. The company derives more than half its $4-billion US in annual revenue from military contracts for items including cluster bombs, depleted uranium rounds and landmines. The geopolitical community sees a larger concern in handing over control of the Radarsat-2 satellite to a company outside Canada. Radarsat-2 was launched in December and hailed by government, space and military officials as a tool to protect Canada's Arctic sovereignty. The satellite is capable of peering through cloud cover and darkness to detect objects at resolutions of up to three metres. Under a deal between MDA and the government — which contributed $430 million to the project through the Canadian Space Agency — MDA owns the satellite and can generate revenues from commercial contracts with other nations, while federal government departments in turn will be able to access information from the satellite at no cost. Critics have questioned whether or not Canada's access to that data would remain if the satellite was sold to a U.S.-based firm. While it's nice they've slammed the binders on, it would be nicer if we had some idea of just what criteria would be applied to determine if the sale is a go or no. Or how about who exactly will be on this board of judges and how many have backgrounds in geopolitics or science? Or American duplicity, for that matter. I'm guessing that level of transparency is as likely as see-through burkhas in Baghdad.