Von Google unterstützte Satelliten zur Waldbranderkennung starten, während Rauch die USA und Kanada erstickt | Das FireSat-Programm kann Waldbrände erkennen, die andere Satelliten übersehen.
https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/07/google-backed-satellites-for-wildfire-detection-launch-as-smoke-chokes-us-canada/
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>As smoke from hundreds of burning wildfires spread across Canada and the United States, the first three operational satellites in the Google-backed FireSat program successfully launched into orbit. The satellites will begin providing wildfire detection capable of spotting even small fires in the United States, Australia, and Europe before the end of the year.
>The launch of the microsatellites aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California on July 7, 2026 marks a transition to “initial operational capability” for the FireSat constellation managed by the nonprofit Earth Fire Alliance. After a three-month testing period, the three satellites will begin actively providing data to fire agencies while covering every fire-prone region on Earth at least twice per day.
>FireSat represents the first satellite constellation purpose-built for detecting wildfires, including spotting smaller fires that other satellites may miss. The satellites were designed by California-based satellite manufacturer Muon Space and have received over $15 million from Google to support initial deployment. Other notable financial supporters include the Bezos Earth Fund that committed $26 million.
>Each satellite is equipped with multispectral imaging that can peer through smoke and clouds and detect fires as small as five by five meters—about 16 by 16 feet. That capability was proven by a FireSat Protoflight satellite that launched in March 2025 and collected more than one million images, while showing it could detect low-intensity blazes invisible to existing satellites.
I mean, we could also start doing controlled burned and actually start taking care of our forest
Competition for watch duty is all this really is. Plenty of publicly available fire satellites right now.
Fire.airnow.gov is one of my favorites, it even shows smoke plumes.
Somebody should send the Google satellites malware that gives them false search results.
Because Google definitely won’t use for any kind of other reason at all, right?