Germany's OroraTech to Deploy Up to 96 Infrared Payloads on Eutelsat Satellites

en.Wedoany.com Reported - On September 9, German space technology company OroraTech signed a cooperation agreement with France's Eutelsat, planning to deploy up to 96 thermal infrared payloads on Eutelsat's future low Earth orbit satellites. OroraTech has reserved capacity for 48 hosted payloads and holds an option to add another 48 in the future. The relevant infrared sensors will be integrated directly into Eutelsat's satellite platforms, rather than all being launched via OroraTech's own dedicated satellites.

OroraTech stated that after the first 48 payloads are deployed, its space observation capability is expected to increase by nearly 500%. The company currently has 14 low Earth orbit satellites carrying its own sensors and also accesses other public satellite data sources; its existing thermal infrared monitoring system is primarily used for all-weather identification of high-temperature anomalies and fire hotspots.

This cooperation adopts a hosted payload model. OroraTech is responsible for the thermal infrared sensors and data processing capabilities, while Eutelsat provides the future low Earth orbit satellite platforms and hosting space. This approach enables the infrared payloads to scale in sync with Eutelsat's subsequent low Earth orbit satellite deployments, without the need to build and launch a complete satellite for each individual sensor.

Once deployed, the payloads will continuously collect thermal infrared data, with applications covering forest fire monitoring, critical infrastructure monitoring, maritime activity identification, environmental monitoring, and security. OroraTech's existing system uses infrared sensors to measure surface thermal signals and combines algorithms to process satellite data for identifying fire points and tracking fire spread.

OroraTech has continued to expand its own thermal infrared satellite system this year. In May, the company deployed 4 dedicated wildfire monitoring satellites for Greece; previously, it also carried 4 SAFIRE Gen4 thermal infrared sensors on Kepler Communications satellites, transmitting orbital thermal infrared data via a low Earth orbit communications network. This agreement with Eutelsat further expands the hosted payload scale to the level of dozens of units.

Eutelsat currently operates both geostationary and low Earth orbit satellite networks. The company's low Earth orbit business revenue reached 297 million euros in the 2025–2026 fiscal year, a year-on-year increase of 69.5%, accounting for approximately 25% of the group's revenue; the company is also undertaking the primary construction task for the low Earth orbit portion of Europe's IRIS² secure connectivity infrastructure.