The BIROS satellite (in the background) builds on the instrument testbed platform of the TET-1 satellite (foreground), which was launched in July 2012. With an infrared camera on board, the BIROS satellite continues with the same fire detection mission.
The German Aerospace Center (DLR) has plans to launch the Berlin Infrared Optical System (BIROS) microsatellite in October 2015. The satellite will be launched from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in India.
BIROS has an infrared camera on board, as in the Tet-1 satellite that has been aloft since 2012. They are both part of the FireBird mission for accurate and timely detection of forest fires. The microsatellite was partly developed by the DLR Institute of Optical Sensor Systems in Berlin.
“Small satellite technology has taken major development hurdles in recent years,” said Dr. Rainer Sandau, technical director for satellite technology and space applications at DLR. “Measurements of the Earth, its atmosphere, oceans and land previously reserved for large satellites is now available for small satellites developers.”
The primary goal of the FireBird mission is to sense hot phenomena such as wildfires, volcanoes, gas flares and industrial hotspots.
