OroraTech is a German

aerospace Aerospace is a term used to collectively refer to the atmosphere and outer space. Aerospace activity is very diverse, with a multitude of commercial, industrial, and military applications. Aerospace engineering consists of aeronautics and astron ...

start-up company providing

wildfire A wildfire, forest fire, or a bushfire is an unplanned and uncontrolled fire in an area of Combustibility and flammability, combustible vegetation. Depending on the type of vegetation present, a wildfire may be more specifically identified as a ...

monitoring by employing nanosatellites. It was founded in 2018 as a

university spin-off University spin-offs (also known as university spin-outs) are companies that transform technological inventions developed from university research that are likely to remain unexploited otherwise. They are a subcategory of research spin-offs. Prom ...

at the Technical University of Munich (TUM). The headquarters are in

Munich Munich is the capital and most populous city of Bavaria, Germany. As of 30 November 2024, its population was 1,604,384, making it the third-largest city in Germany after Berlin and Hamburg. Munich is the largest city in Germany that is no ...

, Germany. In June 2023, OroraTech joined the

Copernicus Programme Copernicus is the Earth observation component of the European Union Space Programme, managed by the European Commission and implemented in partnership with the Member state of the European Union, EU member states, the European Space Agency (ES ...

of the

European Space Agency The European Space Agency (ESA) is a 23-member International organization, international organization devoted to space exploration. With its headquarters in Paris and a staff of around 2,547 people globally as of 2023, ESA was founded in 1975 ...

History

OroraTech's key idea had been developed during the MOVE-II

CubeSat A CubeSat is a class of small satellite with a form factor of cubes. CubeSats have a mass of no more than per unit,, url=https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5418c831e4b0fa4ecac1bacd/t/5f24997b6deea10cc52bb016/1596234122437/CDS+REV14+2020-07-3 ...

project and WARR at the

Technical University of Munich The Technical University of Munich (TUM or TU Munich; ) is a public research university in Munich, Bavaria, Germany. It specializes in engineering, technology, medicine, and applied and natural sciences. Established in 1868 by King Ludwig II ...

(TUM). Starting as a spin-off in January 2017, the company was incorporated as ''Orbital Oracle Technologies GmbH'' (short: ''OroraTech'') in September 2018. Since OroraTech's technology is based on academic research at the TUM, TUM professors Ulrich Walter, a former

astronaut An astronaut (from the Ancient Greek (), meaning 'star', and (), meaning 'sailor') is a person trained, equipped, and deployed by a List of human spaceflight programs, human spaceflight program to serve as a commander or crew member of a spa ...

, and Alexander W. Koch act as advisors to the company.

Technology

Wildfire detection using infrared sensors in space had been proposed as a technology since the 1990s. Technological advances, notably sunk space launch cost, enabled

non-state actor A non-state actor (NSA) is an individual or organization that has significant political influence but is not allied to any particular country or state. The interests, structure, and influence of NSAs vary widely. For example, among NSAs are non-pr ...

s to enter the market. As such, OroraTech operates a software platform for the detection and monitoring of wildfires based on measuring thermal-

infrared Infrared (IR; sometimes called infrared light) is electromagnetic radiation (EMR) with wavelengths longer than that of visible light but shorter than microwaves. The infrared spectral band begins with the waves that are just longer than those ...

radiation from space. The company is using data from existing satellites and develops their own constellation of 3-U CubeSats with thermal-infrared cameras to further improve temporal and spatial resolution of fire detection. The software platform generates various overlays on base maps to visualize fire risk and fire detections. At the current stage, the platform uses data from twelve satellites in polar and geostationary orbits, including such by

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the federal government of the United States, US federal government responsible for the United States ...

, ESA, and

EUMETSAT The European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT) is an intergovernmental organisation created through an international convention agreed by a current total of 30 European Member States. EUMETSAT's primary ...

. In early 2020, the platform had around 100 active users. The satellite technology is based on research from the MOVE-II project at the Chair of Astronautics (LRT) at the TUM; during the project, a 1-Unit CubeSat was launched with

SpaceX Space Exploration Technologies Corp., commonly referred to as SpaceX, is an America, American space technology company headquartered at the SpaceX Starbase, Starbase development site in Starbase, Texas. Since its founding in 2002, the compa ...

in December 2018. OroraTech's first nanosatellite, based on the original CubeSat, was developed to reach 10 cm x 10 cm x 34 cm in size, weighing around 1.2 kg, and it was launched on 13 January 2022 as part of

's Transporter-3 rideshare mission. The satellite features an uncooled thermal-infrared imager for space applications, and

GPU A graphics processing unit (GPU) is a specialized electronic circuit designed for digital image processing and to accelerate computer graphics, being present either as a discrete video card or embedded on motherboards, mobile phones, personal ...

-accelerated on-orbit processing to reduce downlink latency and bandwidth for quicker wildfire alert dissemination, making it particularly efficient in tackling the issue of detecting wildfires in late afternoon images. As of June 2022, the company plans to put its next eight satellites into orbit by the end of 2023, aiming for a detection time of 30 minutes. A second satellite, once again hosted on a

Lemur-2 Spire Global, Inc. is a space-to-cloud data and analytics company that specializes in the tracking of global data sets powered by a large constellation of nanosatellites, such as the tracking of maritime, aviation and weather patterns. The comp ...

cubesat platform, was launched on 12 June 2023 on a Falcon 9 Block 5 rocket as part of SpaceX Transporter-8 rideshare mission.

Field applications

The technology is used by Wildfire Services in British Columbia (Canada) and New South Wales (Australia) for wildfire detection and

wildfire suppression Wildfire suppression is a range of firefighting tactics used to suppress wildfires. Firefighting efforts depend on many factors such as the available fuel, the local atmospheric conditions, the features of the terrain, and the size of the wildfir ...

. International media used images from OroraTech's wildfire service for coverage of the

2020 wildfire season The 2020 wildfire season involves wildfires on multiple continents. Below is a partial list of articles on wildfires from around the world in the year 2020. Asia * 2020 Uttarakhand forest fires, India * 2020 Russian wildfires * 2020 Turkish ...

in California, Oregon, British Columbia, and Siberia.

References

{{Reflist Aerospace engineering organizations Remote sensing companies Scientific organisations based in Germany