MDA Space, a mission partner to the global defence and space industry, has officially opened the MDA CHORUS Control Centre in St-Bruno-de-Montarville, Québec, on the south shore of Montréal. The new control centre will serve as the operational hub for MDA CHORUS satellite operations, marking a step towards operational readiness ahead of the late 2026 launch.
Designed to serve commercial and government customers globally, MDA CHORUS is a next-generation Earth observation constellation designed and built by MDA Space. Set to provide among the most extensive dual-band synthetic aperture radar imaging capacity available on the market, once commissioned, the constellation will deliver a 700 km-wide imaging swath and sub-metre high-resolution spotlight images, day or night, regardless of weather conditions.
The dual-band satellite constellation enables tipping and cueing, where the leading wide-area C-band satellite images a broad area of interest, and the trailing high-resolution X-band satellite zooms in for a closer look, delivering both broad situational awareness and precise detail in a single pass.
“The opening of this new state-of-the-art control centre is a critical and exciting step as we prepare to launch and operationalize MDA CHORUS™,” said Mike Greenley, CEO of MDA Space. “Backed by decades of on-orbit operations experience across a team that has supported one of the world’s most important Earth observation space assets and missions, this facility brings together the people, systems and infrastructure required to deliver the extraordinary insights and intelligence that global customers depend on.”
The MDA CHORUS Control Centre has consolidated satellite mission operations expertise, bringing together the teams and systems that will manage MDA CHORUS in a purpose-built control environment. The facility is equipped to support the full scope of satellite operations, from command and control to mission assurance and Earth observation data delivery.
With the MDA CHORUS Control Centre now open, MDA Space remains on track for the launch of MDA CHORUS™ in late 2026 and the commencement of commercial operations in early 2027.
