Canada is getting ready to mark another milestone in space history with the upcoming launch of RADARSAT-2 from the Baikonour Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

The satellite underwent final testing at the David Florida Laboratory in Ottawa and is ready for launch, scheduled for mid December.

In the lead-up to launch day, the teams at the control centre at the John H. Chapman Space Centre in Longueuil are performing simulation exercises. They review all the deployment phases that happen once the satellite is in space and what situations might arise that affect the launch or the commissioning of the satellite.

These many hours of practice help train the teams. At launch time, everyone will be much more able to react quickly to deploy the satellite under the best possible conditions when it reaches its nominal orbit.

Throughout the three-day deployment process, the teams will work at the consoles in shifts, analyzing the telemetry data and sending commands to the satellite via antennas located in Longueuil, Quebec, and Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.

Once deployment is complete, commissioning of the satellite takes place over the next three months. This involves the testing of all sub-systems to ensure that they were not damaged during the launch. By testing and calibrating the multiple antenna modes one by one, the teams will commission the sophisticated radar antenna. Modes range from Ultra-Fine, for high-resolution (three metres), to Wide Swath, for images that cover a 500-kilometre area.