Geosynchronous orbit (GEO) is an orbit where the time it takes a satellite to orbit the Earth matches the time in takes the Earth to rotate. As a result, the satellite stays fixed over one spot all the time. Medium Earth Orbit (MEO) sits between GEO and low-Earth orbit and supports wide-area coverage with fewer satellites.

For remote sensing, these orbits matter because they provide persistent visibility that is not possible in low earth orbit (LEO) where the vast majority of satellites reside. From GEO, we can monitor an entire region in near real time, making it possible to detect and track events continuously instead of waiting for a satellite to pass overhead.

There is no single system that can cover the entire Western United States with no spatial or temporal gaps. All other solutions address pieces of the wildfire monitoring problem like solutions that cover broad areas but a few times a day or solutions that are always on but only cover small areas. Our solution allows us to be ‘always-on’ and cover a large area. When Fire Sentry is combine with other solutions it will make for an exceptional suite of capabilities.

Check out our consortium page. Because Orbital Sentry is much more like a video monitoring system than a classic snapshot imaging system, we’ve structured our payment process as a once per year fee to receive Orbital Sentry services. Kind of like your video doorbell subscription.

We are aiming for VIIRS-like resolution and wildfire sensitivity but instead of once per day we will provide data continuously.

Per our consortium page we plan to share key wildfire data with first responders for free. This would include realtime hotspot location detection and perimeter data. We are planning to leverage partners that already distribute data to first responders rather than build another platform. If you’re someone who partners with first responders to provide this kind of data and wants to work with us, we’d love to chat! Use our contact form to reach out!

We believe academic research is important and going to reveal capabilities in our data we have yet to imagine. We plan to have an academic license available but the details and structure have yet to be determined.

Geosynchronous orbit is great for reducing false positives. Because our system persistently stares at the same thing, hot spots can be checked, rechecked, and checked again in moments, not hours.

We’re not looking to build yet another wildfire platform. Many organizations already do this exceptionally well. Our goal is to provide critical data via API, in industry standard formats.

We’re working hard to launch as soon as possible, stay tuned for more information as we make progress.

We sure are! Wildfire happens all over the world, and want to cover all the critical regions. Additionally, as we grow we expect our use cases to expand as well.

Definitely! Persistent infrared monitoring is great for many things, from data center monitoring to ballistic missile defense and tracking, and beyond. We anticipate our infrared system plus wide area optical system to be excellent data sources for AI Foundation Models as well. We have plans to build additional use case specific imaging systems over time as well, to cover additional perils.