Canada: Canada’s MDA Corp said that the government has rejected the company’s request to take part in an international competition to provide radar earth observation satellites to Russia, a competition that now may have narrowed to focus on European bidders.
Richmond, British Columbia-based MDA also said it spent 3 million Canadian dollars ($2.91 million) in the three months ending September 30 performing due diligence in pursuit of a major acquisition that MDA scrapped when the seller raised the price. MDA balked at the new price and withdrew its participation. The company was later purchased by another bidder.
The Russian government for more than a year has been soliciting interest in prospective bidders on a radar earth observation system. MDA is under contract to the Canadian government for the three-satellite Radarsat Constellation Mission (RCM) and had been viewed as a likely bidder for the Russian work unless the contract was signed as a government-to-government cooperative endeavour.
Astrium GmbH of Germany has also demonstrated its interest in the contract, and German government officials have said they welcome the chance to extend the constellation of the TerraSAR-X and TanDEM-X satellites, now in orbit, beyond the single Paz satellite under construction for the Spanish government.
Source: Space News
