ABSTRACT
Canada became one of the earliest members of the global satellite community with the launching of its first satellite in 1962. As in the U.S., the major impetus for space communication research in Canada Game from the military. The first Canadian satellite, Alouette, was funded and designed by the Defence Research Telecommunications Establishment and launched for Canada by NASA. Interestingly, its purpose was not to test satellite communications, but to collect data on the ionosphere from above. The propagation effects of the ionosphere were important for high frequency radio communications used by the military and also at that time for civilian communications in the remote north. Alouette I was followed by two other experimental satellites, Isis I and II, both designed and built in Canada and launched by NASA, to continue research on the ionosphere.
