Late today the Canadian Space Agency announced it will hold a press event at MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates Ltd. (MDA) office in Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue on the West island of Montreal tomorrow at 11:30 a.m. ET. It is expected the government will announce the funding and contract for the delayed RADARSAT Constellation Mission (RCM).
Christian Paradis, the Minister of Industry will be joined by Canadian Space Agency (CSA) President Steve MacLean and Mag Iskander, President, Information Systems, MDA, the prime contractor for RCM.
Last October MacLean signaled that a contract for RCM was forthcoming and the government said it would act upon the Aerospace Review it received in late November.
It is unlikely Minister Paradis will address the Aerospace Review in any substantive way tomorrow other than to affirm the governments ongoing support of the space sector. However the news is not all good in the space sector with Steve MacLean telling Space News today that further cuts were coming to the Canadian Space Agency. The last budget foretold the bad news for the space sector and it appears even with the RCM announcement difficult times lay ahead for the space sector.