Science

WILDFIRE 1

Military Missile Tracking (SDA Tranche 0 Tracking Layer) · US Space Development Agency (SDA)

One of eight Tracking Layer satellites in the US Space Development Agency's Tranche 0 constellation, launched September 2, 2023 on a Falcon 9 from Vandenberg. Despite the name's coincidental resemblance to wildfire-monitoring satellites, WILDFIRE 1 is a military missile-warning spacecraft — part of the SDA's proliferated architecture demonstrating that hundreds of small, cheap, resilient satellites in low orbit can perform the same infrared missile detection mission that traditionally required a handful of large, expensive, vulnerable geostationary satellites like SBIRS. WILDFIRE 1 carries a wide-field-of-view infrared sensor designed to detect the heat signature of missile launches, including the harder-to-track hypersonic glide vehicles that traditional missile warning satellites struggle to follow.