Radarsat-2 is an Earth observation satellite that was successfully launched December 14, 2007 for the Canadian Space Agency by Starsem, using a Soyuz FG launch vehicle, from Kazakhstan's Baikonur Cosmodrome. Radarsat-2 was previously assembled, integrated and tested at the David Florida Laboratory near Ottawa, Ontario before the start of its launch campaign.

The end of the spacecraft and ground segment commissioning period was declared on April 27, 2008 after which routine commercial operation started.

The Satellite has a Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) with multiple polarization modes, including a fully polarimetric mode in which HH, HV, VV and VH polarized data are acquired. Its highest resolution is 1 m in Spotlight mode (3 m in Ultra Fine mode) with 100 m positional accuracy requirement. In ScanSAR Wide Beam mode the SAR has a nominal swath width of 500 km and an imaging resolution of 100 m. Its left looking capability allows the spacecraft the unique capability to image the Antarctic on a routine basis providing data in support of scientific research.

Peggy A. Nash (born June 28, 1951) is a Canadian labour official and politician from Toronto, Ontario, Canada. She is the New Democratic Party (NDP) Member of Parliament (MP) for the Parkdale—High Park electoral district (riding) in Toronto, and was the Official Opposition's Finance Critic, in Canada's 41st parliament. Before becoming a parliamentarian, she worked as a labour official at the Canadian Auto Workers union (CAW), where she became the first female to negotiate a major contract with one of the Detroit-based automobile corporations in 2005. She was first elected as the MP for Parkdale—High Park in the 2006 federal election. In the 2008 federal election, she was defeated in her re-election bid by Liberal candidate Gerard Kennedy. After her defeat, Nash returned to her previous job as a labour official with the CAW. She was elected to a two-year term as the federal NDP's President on August 15, 2009, at the party's convention in Halifax, Nova Scotia. She ran for parliament again in the 2011 federal election, and defeated Kennedy, to regain her former seat in the Canadian House of Commons.

Paul W. Dewar, MP (born January 25, 1963) is a Canadian educator and politician from Ottawa, Ontario. He is the New Democratic Party (NDP) Member of Parliament (MP) for the riding of Ottawa Centre.

Dewar was first elected to the House of Commons in the 2006 federal election. He served as the Official Opposition Critic for Foreign Affairs, until he left the post in October 2011 to run for the leadership of the NDP. Before entering politics he worked as a teacher and was an elected representative of the Ottawa-Carleton Elementary Teachers' Federation.

Paul Dewar was born in Ottawa, Ontario on January 25, 1963 to parents Ken Dewar and former Ottawa mayor and New Democratic Member of Parliament, Marion Dewar. When he was in grade three, Dewar was diagnosed with dyslexia, after his teacher noticed that he was struggling to read and write. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Carleton University in political science and economics in 1985.

Not long after he completed his Bachelor of Arts, Dewar embarked on a five-month trip to Nicaragua, where he volunteered as an aid worker. Following his return to Ottawa, he began working as constituency assistant to Ontario Minister of Health and NDP Member of Provincial Parliament for Ottawa Centre, Evelyn Gigantes. Dewar served in this position from 1990 to 1995.^{[citation needed]} It was during this time that he met his wife, Julia Sneyd. They later had two children together: Nathaniel and Daniel.