The RADARSAT system was developed under the management of the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) in cooperation with provincial governments and the private sector.

Industrial team members who designed and built RADARSAT-1 include:

• Spar Aerospace (prime contractor for construction of the satellite)
• ASC Inc.
• COM DEV
• First Mark Technologies
• CAL Corporation
• MacDonald Dettwiler and Associates
• Ball Aerospace
• MPB Technologies
• Prior Data Sciences
• SED Systems
• Dornier
• Fleet Industries
• SAFT
• IMP
• FRE Composites
• FIAR
• Loral
• Odetics
• GORE
• TST
• COI
• Gulton INP
• Barnes
• South West Research
• Allied Signal
• Adcole
• SEAKR
• Schoeastedt Aerospace
• British Aerospace

The ground receiving stations and processing facilities were built by MacDonald Dettwiler and Associates, while the payload subsystems were built by COM DEV. In total, approximately 100 Canadian and international organizations were involved in the design and construction of the space and ground segments.

The total cost of the project, excluding launch, is estimated at $620 million, with the federal government contributing about $500 million. The four participating provinces (Quebec, Ontario, Saskatchewan and British Columbia) contributed about $57 million, while other provinces contributed by pre-purchasing data (all Canadian provinces participated in planning the RADARSAT program). The private sector contributed about $63 million.

An agreement with NASA and NOAA provided for the launching and deploying by NASA of the satellite, in return for data provided to US federal departments and agencies. NASA's main requirement was two mappings of the Antarctic continent within RADARSAT's projected five-year life.