Radarsat-1

Radarsat-1 was officially decommissioned in March 2013 after 17 years of operation, far exceeding its original five-year design life. The Canadian Space Agency terminated the mission after the satellite's systems had degraded to the point where imagery could no longer be reliably produced.

Radarsat-1 used C-band synthetic aperture radar, which transmits microwave pulses at 5.3 GHz and records the reflected signals to build detailed surface images regardless of cloud cover, darkness, or weather. This all-weather, day-and-night imaging capability made it especially valuable for monitoring the Arctic, which experiences prolonged darkness and heavy cloud cover.

Radarsat-1 was designed primarily to monitor Arctic sea ice and icebergs to support safe navigation and offshore operations in Canadian waters. Its data was also used worldwide for disaster monitoring, agriculture, forestry, cartography, and oceanography by government agencies, scientists, and commercial customers.

Radarsat-1 remained in orbit as space debris after its 2013 decommissioning and has not yet de-orbited as of the 2020s. Its operational successor was the Radarsat-2 satellite, launched in 2007, which offered improved resolution and additional imaging modes, and the three-satellite Radarsat Constellation Mission followed in 2019.