National Defence committee  We're made aware of it.

National Defence committee  Thanks for the question, Mr. Chair. NORAD doesn't watch objects in space. What we do is watch terrestrial launches towards space. Of course, what we're watching for, predominantly, are ballistic missiles or missiles that could become hypersonic missiles. We also see all re-entries.

National Defence committee  No, it's U.S. Space Command, because that's their primary area of responsibility. What's going to sort this out—I think it was asked in a previous session—is CJADC2. As we push information across all domains, all combatant commands, countries, NATO and NORAD, and are able to communicate and make decisions based on a pretty similar architecture or system, we'll have the information available that we need.

National Defence committee  On the NORAD side, we don't see nearly as much of that type of contracting as we do in other parts of the government and within the Department of National Defence. Most of that would be on the U.S. side as opposed to the Canadian side, which I'm not at liberty to talk about.

National Defence committee  Obviously, anything linked to ISR—intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance—is critical for us, especially polar over-the-horizon radar. Given where it's going to be, it'll communicate through SATCOM to get its information back to our headquarters. Certainly with regard to SATCOM communications, as I said earlier, we have huge, gaping communication holes over northern Canada and over the Arctic.

National Defence committee  What I can say, Mr. Chair, from a NORAD perspective, is that NORAD doesn't do space; we rely on space. We describe what our requirements are. Then, on the U.S. side, the U.S. Space Command and the U.S. Space Force will determine the best way to deliver that. On the Canadian side, it would be DG Air and Space Force Development.

National Defence committee  Thank you for the question. We don't have as much information on China as we do on other countries, and that's one of the problems. I, for one, would look at China's intentions in the Arctic, which might help draw connections with its intentions in space. Every summer, we see the Xue Long 2 going north.

National Defence committee  I can speak to over-the-horizon radar. It's OTHR Arctic, which is one of two Canadian radars that will be fielded by 2026. For the polar variant, which will be situated further north in Canada and will look over the poles, I don't have a date on that, but it's a number of years later.

National Defence committee  We use RADARSAT—RADARSAT Constellation Mission—primarily for maritime warning, the third mission that I mentioned. It's not the only source of data. Clearly, there's RCM, and there's other data available, so it's blended in with significant other ISR data from other platforms to give us our maritime warning picture.

National Defence committee  For the RADARSAT Constellation Mission, I don't have any information on that, Mr. Chair.

National Defence committee  Absolutely, Mr. Chair. This has been identified over numerous years. Our commander makes a report to both the Secretary of Defense and the Chief of the Defence Staff highlighting that we have issues with domain awareness when it comes to our radar coverage. If you look out beyond our coasts, both east and west and in the north, you see that once you get a distance off the coast, we have no radar coverage.

National Defence committee  If I may, Mr. Chair, one of the things that we run into the most when we hold our STRDI symposiums is classification levels. When we talk about the future of NORAD, we're talking at least at the secret level, if not at the TS level. U.S. companies make an effort to have folks who are cleared right up to that level.

National Defence committee  Absolutely.

National Defence committee  I'm in town for this, but I'm also here for a NORAD summit. This is a first-ever Canadian summit for our program within NORAD. It's called STRDI, or Science and Technology, Research and Development, and Innovation. It annually brings industry to Colorado Springs. This is the first time we're doing it in Canada, in order to encourage Canadian industry.

National Defence committee  As far as a link between the satellites and balloons goes, we at the unclassified level have not seen any link between the two, other than the fact that a balloon flying over North America could be collecting surveillance data. There are thousands of balloons that fly over North America every year.