Google.org has contributed more than $15 million to back the deployment of these satellites as part of advancing AI for climate resilience and disaster preparedness.

The FireSat initiative, led by the Earth Fire Alliance, aims to build a global wildfire dataset and provide continuous coverage to help fire agencies detect wildfires early.

The trio lifted into low Earth orbit aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket to enhance wildfire detection and response.

Live data is expected to be shared with the science community to advance fire behavior research, with AI-assisted publication of the story.

Initial data will provide two daily images per area (one per satellite per pass), with plans to scale to hourly coverage as the constellation grows.

Google Research, in collaboration with EFA and Muon Space, developed a fault-tolerant constellation designed to detect wildfires before they spread and provide persistent monitoring.

The new orbiters build on a pilot FireSat satellite launched last year, which demonstrated sensors capable of detecting early-stage wildfires as small as 5 by 5 meters.

The satellites are built to monitor fires as small as a shipping container, measure intensity, identify burn scars up to five years old, and see through smoke, according to Earth Fire Alliance founder Dr. Karen O’Connor.

Earth Fire Alliance and Muon Space designed FireSat after consulting hundreds of experts and agencies, including Cal Fire, to determine the needed space-based wildfire data.

The three-satellite system will undergo three months of monitoring and testing, with live data expected to reach fire agencies by year’s end.

Priority regions for monitoring include the Amazon, Boreal regions, and Indonesian peat forests due to their critical environmental importance.

Three FireSat satellites were launched from Vandenberg Space Force Base to expand the program.