The TUBIN nanosatellite mission for wildfire detection in thermal infrared

The increasing number of wildfires has significant impact on the Earth’s climate system. Furthermore, they cause severe economic damage in many parts of the world. While different land and airborne wildfire detection and observation systems are in use in some areas of the world already, spaceborne systems offer great potential regarding global and continuous observation. TUBIN is a proof-of-concept mission to demonstrate the capabilities of a nanosatellite carrying lightweight infrared microbolometer arrays for spaceborne detection of wildfires and other high-temperature events. To this end, TUBIN carries two infrared microbolometers complemented by a CMOS imager. The TUBIN space segment is based on the TUBiX20 nanosatellite platform of Technische Universitat Berlin and is the first mission that implements the full-scale attitude determination and control system of TUBiX20. Thereby, the TUBIN mission will demonstrate the platform’s ability to support a challenging Earth observation mission.