OroraTech

OroraTech, headquartered in Munich, Germany and founded in 2018 as a spinout from the Technical University of Munich (TUM), is a space-based wildfire detection and monitoring company operating a constellation of small satellites equipped with thermal infrared sensors — providing global near-real-time wildfire detection services that give forestry agencies, fire services, property insurers, utility companies, and governments early warning of fires and continuous situational awareness during active fire events.

Conventional wildfire detection relies on ground observers, aerial patrol aircraft, and optical cameras mounted on towers — methods that are expensive, miss remote areas, and provide no coverage at night or through smoke. Satellites have long been used for fire monitoring (NASA's MODIS instruments on Terra and Aqua, and Suomi NPP's VIIRS instrument), but at resolutions of 375m-1km with revisit times of 12-24 hours, these systems miss small fires at ignition when early suppression is most cost-effective. OroraTech's smallsat constellation — starting with thermal infrared-equipped 6U cubesats — detects heat signatures as small as 5-10 meters in size with sub-hourly global revisit, enabling fire detection within minutes of ignition rather than hours.

OroraTech's FOREST-3 constellation builds on initial technology demonstration satellites and aims to deploy dozens of thermal infrared smallsats providing near-continuous global coverage. The thermal sensors detect mid-wave infrared (MWIR, 3-5 µm) and long-wave infrared (LWIR, 8-12 µm) emission characteristic of burning vegetation, with AI-based onboard processing to classify fire versus false positives (industrial heat, hot desert surfaces) before downlinking alerts. OroraTech's data platform delivers fire perimeter maps, radiative power estimates for fire intensity, and historical burn area analysis.

Customers include German and European forest agencies (Bavarian State Forest Enterprise, BayWa), global insurers quantifying wildfire liability, and power utilities mapping asset exposure to fire risk. OroraTech has raised venture funding from the European Space Agency's BIC program and private investors including SET Ventures and Airbus Ventures, competing with Satellogic, Planet, and Maxar for wildfire monitoring contracts.