According to a story from Canwest News Service, the Pentagon is evaluating the Radarsat satellite after facing difficulties building its own radar satellite. The Pentagon canceled its own radar satellite program earlier this year, partly because of cost increases. Radarsat is one of several foreign satellite consortiums that received inquiries last week from the U.S. Defense Department.

MacDonald Dettwiler, makers of the Radarsat-2 satellite that launched successfully in December 2007, indicates that it wouldn’t be difficult for them to create a clone of the satellite for the Pentagon. MacDonald Dettwiler owns the intillectual property of the satellite, although they’re heavily subsidized by the Canadian government through data purchases. Any export of the technology would need Canadian government approval, but analysts don’t see that as an issue.

Read more related Spatial Sustain posts: