December 20, 2023
Defence scientists with Defence Research and Development Canada (DRDC) experimented with commercial satellites in low earth orbit (LEO) for military intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) in the Arctic, during Operation NANOOK – TUUGAALIK – NUNAKPUT 2023.
The Canadian Forces Joint Imagery Centre (CFJIC) supported the scientific experiment, which ran from Aug. 4th to Sept. 12th, 2023, during the annual Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) operation with Allies and government partners.
Using commercial low earth orbit satellites and correlating data from the automatic identification system (AIS), Defence Research and Development Canada, with support from Canadian Forces Joint Imagery Centre, conducted an experiment on surveillance and reconnaissance in the Arctic during Operation NANOOK – TUUGAALIK – NUNAKPUT.
The main aim of this scientific experiment was to assess the military use of commercial small satellites (small sats) for ISR using research technologies aimed at compressing parts of the tasking, collection, processing, exploitations and dissemination cycle. DRDC accessed a hybrid constellation of commercial low earth orbit small sats (and other commercial satellites) to collect data on participating vessels in four different military vignettes during Op NANOOK-TUUGALIK. These commercial satellites included sensors for electro-optical/infrared (EO/IR) imagery, synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imagery and monitoring of marine automatic identification system (AIS) messages. These satellite systems were used to test DRDC Ottawa Research Centre’s mission planning tool, known as the commercial satellite imagery acquisition planning system (CSIAPS), and three semi-automated EO/IR, SAR and AIS exploitation prototypes.
More than a dozen spot reports (SPOTREPs) containing analysis derived from the semi-automated toolsets were produced to gather feedback from different elements of the Royal Canadian Navy. This work supports a program of Arctic defence-related experimentation and Canada’s commitment to improving the CAF’s expertise, readiness and interoperability in the Arctic region.
The experiment brought together nine scientists, engineers and military officers from the DRDC Ottawa Research Centre, three from the DRDC Valcartier Research Centre and one from CFJIC, with support from several DND organizations as well as from Canadian and US industry partners.