MDA Expands Support of Arctic Pollution Surveillance Initiative

MDA’s Geospatial Services (Canada) has announced that it will extend its RADARSAT-1 oil spill monitoring and detection services to the Canadian Arctic region in response to Transport Canada’s expansion of the National Aerial Surveillance Program (NASP) coverage to this area. The goal of NASP is to detect and prosecute polluters in the maritime environment through the use of aircraft, surface vessel and satellite monitoring programs.

The satellite monitoring component of NASP is embodied in the Integrated Satellite Tracking of Polluters (ISTOP) program led by Environment Canada. ISTOP is supported by Canada’s RADARSAT-1 satellite, which acquires Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) data over NASP coverage areas on a daily basis.

Once the RADARSAT-1 data is received by MDA, image analysis experts analyze the data for potential oil pollution events. Time from data reception through image analysis to final delivery of reports to partners can be in as little as 1.5 hours.