Canadian HIFI Industrial Partners
COM DEV Space and MPB Technologies

MPB Technologies of Pointe-Claire, Québec completed an initial design study for the LSU under contract to the Canadian Space Agency during the period September 1999 to October 2000. MPB developed a demonstration "bread-board" version of the X-band (10GHz) portion of the synthesiser.

In February 2001, COM DEV Space of Cambridge, Ontario, took over the study, and began work towards detailed design and analysis. MPB Technologies participated in the technology handover by providing consulting service through to June 2001.

The design study contract continued through to June 2002. During that time COM DEV Space worked on design optimisation, and particularly on the LSU interface to the rest of the HIFI system.

In June 2002, an open competition was held for the Phase-0/A contract, which eventually leads to the final contract to build the LSU flight hardware. The competition was won by COM DEV Space.