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Loft Orbital and SmartSat CRC to demonstrate AI hyperspectral wildfire detection on LEO satellite

Loft Orbital has signed a contract with Australia’s SmartSat Cooperative Research Centre to demonstrate an AI-powered wildfire detection application as a hosted payload on Loft's LEO satellites. The hyperspectral system aims to distinguish smoke from clouds and flag small blazes to improve early warning and forecasting.

Discovered 2026-02-18T06:13:59.563866-08:00 | 2026-02-18T06:13:59.563866-08:00

Briefing

What Hype is tracking

Demonstrates an on-orbit AI hyperspectral detection capability that distinguishes smoke from cloud and flags nascent blazes — a direct test of early-detection and forecasting functions being moved into space.
Adds to industry momentum toward in-orbit processing, hosted payloads and commercial thermal fire services, building on recent work around space-based processing and edge compute (source:2a95ea76-e1b8-4252-9a5c-27af6b89f9a8, source:c7f0df98-0e75-4545-8295-5ba39934dd53, source:e4c8c52e-4f74-4b57-a7d1-02ba4fa399fb).

Reported By

exterrajsc.com heliopsmag.com Via Satellite Business Wire