MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates, Ltd. Will Benefit From the Launch of the Canadian Space Agency's Radarsat Satellite.VANCOUVER, British Columbia--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 20, 1995--MACDONALD DETTWILER (TSE See Tokyo Stock Exchange. TSE 1. See Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE). 2. See Toronto Stock Exchange (TSE). ,VSE See DOS/VSE. VSE - Virtual Storage Extended :MDA (1) (Monochrome Display Adapter) The first IBM PC monochrome video display standard for text. Due to its lack of graphics, MDA cards were often replaced with Hercules cards, which provided both text and graphics. See PC display modes and Hercules Graphics. ) MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates, Ltd. anticipates major commercial benefits from the launch in September of the Canadian Space Agency's Radarsat satellite. The benefits to MacDonald Dettwiler MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates Ltd. (TSX: MDA) is a Richmond based, Canadian information services and products company, employing over 3000 people throughout Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom, under the MDA brand name. will come from the sale of data processing data processing or information processing, operations (e.g., handling, merging, sorting, and computing) performed upon data in accordance with strictly defined procedures, such as recording and summarizing the financial transactions of a systems and from the sale of information. After the launch, about two dozen ground stations around the world will need to buy upgraded processing equipment if they want the new satellite's earth images. In addition, these ground stations will pay a fee to Radarsat International Inc. for data received from the satellite. MacDonald Dettwiler has a 25 percent stake in Radarsat International, which has worldwide marketing rights to Radarsat data. The other three owners of Radarsat International are Spar Aerospace SPAR Aerospace, a Canadian aerospace company, led the development of the Canadarm for the NASA Space shuttle program. There, employees worked on projects ranging from flying saucers to dinosaurs. Ltd. of Mississauga, Ont., COM (1) (Computer Output Microfilm) Creating microfilm or microfiche from the computer. A COM machine receives print-image output from the computer either online or via tape or disk and creates a film image of each page. DEV Ltd. of Cambridge, Ont. and Lockheed Martin Corp. of Bethesda, Maryland. The upgrading of ground stations that process optical or radar earth images has been one of MacDonald Dettwiler's core businesses for more than 20 years. Camera-like optical sensors provide color images that look like photographs. Radar images are more akin to X-rays and take more expertise to interpret. Radar helps peer through clouds and haze. It can be used to gauge ice thickness or soil moisture, and has many agricultural, geological and navigational applications. With Radarsat, MacDonald Dettwiler has a special advantage in bidding for foreign ground station upgrades. That's because MacDonald Dettwiler recently completed a multi-year, $10 million project to build a software and hardware system to refine the raw data from Radarsat. The system has been added to a ground station at Gatineau, Que. that the company has been upgrading continuously since the mid-1980s. This Radarsat processing system is the only one of its kind in the world. It has the capacity to process data from all 26 of Radarsat's beams and beam combinations, providing detailed and accurate earth images. MacDonald Dettwiler also builds systems to process data from the two main radar satellites now in orbit, Europe's ERS ERS, n.pr See extended rotated side-bent. 1 and Japan's J-ERS1. In the data-fee business, Radarsat International expects a strong market because the new satellite will provide more detail than existing radar satellites and will collect data from parts of the globe that aren't covered now. Two similar consortiums, formed by other companies to market data from optical satellites, each generate $50 million of annual revenue. In addition to the Radarsat data processor, MacDonald Dettwiler developed and built a $33.6 million mission-control system and mission management office in St. Hubert, Que. for the Radarsat satellite. The control and management systems allow for the efficient acceptance of customer requests for data. The systems also allow the satellite's beams to be pointed toward geographical features that customers want information about. MacDonald Dettwiler is an international leader in advanced systems development for the earth observation, aviation, defence and communications industries. -0- Note to editors: This release is being issued in conjunction with a press conference hosted by the Canadian Space Agency The Canadian Space Agency (CSA or, in French, l'Agence spatiale canadienne, ASC) is the Canadian government space agency responsible for Canada's space program. It was established in March 1989 by the Canadian Space Agency Act and sanctioned in December 1990. today in Ottawa to show the Radarsat satellite. CONTACT: Alan Bayless, Corporate Communications (604) 278-3411 |
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