WildFireSat

Quick facts

Overview

Summary

Mission Capabilities

Each WildFireSat satellite will carry a single instrument, the Canadian Wildland Fire Monitoring Sensor (CWFMS), a multispectral radiometer operating in the visible to infrared range. CWFMS will primarily observe Fire Radiative Power (FRP), allowing for the detection and monitoring of wildfire hotspots, measurement of rate of spread and burnt area mapping.

Performance Specifications

CWFMS will operate in four bands, in the visible (VIS), near infrared (NIR), medium wave infrared (MWIR) and thermal infrared (TIR) wavebands.Across the TIR and MWIR bands, CWFMS will have a spatial resolution of 400 m, while in the VIS and NIR bands, it will achieve a spatial resolution of 200m. The instrument has a swath width of 400 km, pointing accuracy of 0.5° and observed temperature accuracy of 15 K across all bands.

The WildFireSat satellites will operate in a Low Earth orbit with an altitude of approximately 650 km, orbital inclination of 98° and an orbital period of 98 minutes.

Overview

WildFireSat is a planned Canadian initiative to monitor active wildfires through an infrared sensing satellite system. The project is currently in development by the Canadian Space Agency (CSA), Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) and Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC). While WildFireSat’s primary objective is supporting wildfire management, it will also provide more precise information on air quality and smoke conditions, and allow more accurate measurement of wildfire carbon emissions. The WildFireSat system will consist of one or more microsatellites in a Low Earth orbit, and will take advantage of this to address a gap in current available data during peak burn periods, shown in Figure 1.

Due to Canada’s vast boreal forest, covering almost 88% of its landmass, the nation spends almost $1 billion annually on wildfire management and monitoring. The development of the WildFireSat program is an effort to ease this cost, while improving current landscape fire monitoring services with data that addresses the peak burn period in the late afternoon.

Spacecraft

The current stated aim of the WildFireSat program is the use of one or more microsatellite spacecraft, utilising the lower launch and production costs associated with more compact bus designs.

Launch

WildFireSat will operate in a low Earth, sun synchronous orbit at an altitude of 650 km, with an orbital inclination of 98° and an orbital period of 98 minutes. This selected orbit will have an LST (Local Solar Time) of 18:00, to produce observations during Canada’s peak burn period.

Mission Status

• 15 December 2023: CSA has signed a contract with Spire Global, a Glasgow based space analytics company, to demonstrate fire detection methods from space, as part of the WildFireSat program.
• 30 September 2019: The Canadian Space Agency (CSA) has selected MDA Space, a Canadian firm, to undertake the system design phase for the WildFireSat program, drawing on MDA’s prior experience with similar CSA programs, such as the RadarSat mission.

Sensor Complement

WildFireSat will carry a single instrument known as the Canadian Wildland Fire Monitoring Sensor (CWFMS), an imaging multispectral radiometer operating in the visible to infrared range. CWFMS is a nadir-viewing radiometer which primarily measures Fire Radiative Power (FRP), the rate of outgoing thermal energy from an active fire, integrated across all wavelengths. The collection of near real time FRP data will allow detection and monitoring of wildfire hotspots, measurement of rate of spread and burnt area mapping. CWFMS will also be used to produce fire maps, showing the location, extent and timing of forest fire events, as well as providing data on smoke plume characteristics through smoke transport maps and plume heights. These measurements can be used to determine total carbon emissions from certain wildfires.

CWFMS observes in four bands, in the VIS (Visible), NIR (Near infrared), MWIR (Medium Wave Infrared) and TIR (Thermal Infrared). In the TIR and MWIR bands, CWFMS has a spatial resolution of 400 m, while across the VIS and NIR bands, it has a resolution of 200 m, as seen in Table 1. CWFMS also has temperature measurement accuracy of 15 K, with pointing accuracy of 0.5°, and a swath width of 400 km across all bands.

CWFMS will build off of the Aquarius SAC-D mission, which used an earlier version of the mid-wave infrared bolometer incorporated in CWFMS. This instrument component functions as a thermal camera through the heating of a detection element by infrared radiation, altering its electrical resistance, which can be detected and mapped across the element, producing an ‘image’ of thermal radiation across the observed area.

Ground Segment

WildFireSat aims to achieve a time lag between data acquisition and delivery to users of no more than 30 minutes, due to the time sensitive nature of the collected data with regards to real time responses to active forest fires. This will be achieved through a downlink priority band list, to streamline the transmission process in the event that not all data can be transmitted in near real time.

References  

1) WildFireSat: Enhancing Canada's ability to manage wildfires | Canadian Space Agency, 28 November 2023, URL:  https://www.asc-csa.gc.ca/eng/satellites/wildfiresat/

2) “THE CEOS DATABASE : MISSION, INSTRUMENTS AND MEASUREMENTS - CWFMS.” CEOS Database, URL: https://database.eohandbook.com/database/instrumentsummary.aspx?instrumentID=1853

3) Hoey, Iain. “Canada's WildFireSat: A step forward in wildfire management.” International Fire & Safety Journal, 25 September 2023, URL: https://internationalfireandsafetyjournal.com/canadas-wildfiresat-a-step-forward-in-wildfire-management/

4) Johnston, Joshua M. “Development of the User Requirements for the Canadian WildFireSat Satellite Mission.” MDPI, 7 September 2020, URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1424-8220/20/18/5081

5) “WildFireSat” MDA, https://mda.space/en/wildfire-sat/

6) “WildFireSat, a Consolidated Global Fire Detection and Monitoring System.” GOFC GOLD, URL: https://gofcgoldvh1.umd.edu/wildfiresat-consolidated-global-fire-detection-and-monitoring-system

7) “WildFireSat Satellite Mission Summary.” CEOS Database, https://database.eohandbook.com/database/missionsummary.aspx?missionID=906