The observations made by the IAC’s first in-house satellite reflect the capacity of the technology developed by IACTEC-Space to monitor wildfires and other natural phenomena from space.
The Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) has obtained new images of the wildfires recorded in Ávila and Madrid using DRAGO-2, the short-wave infrared camera on board the ALISIO-1 satellite. The observations, processed by the IACTEC-Space team, make it possible to identify the area affected by the fire and show the potential of this technology for Earth observation and support for the monitoring of natural disasters.
“The images were taken over the wildfires in Ávila and Madrid by DRAGO-2, the optical instrument on board ALISIO-1. The burned areas can be seen as dark areas on the ground”, explains Juan Francisco Hernández Cabrera, Remote Sensing Engineer at IACTEC-Space. “One of the two filters of this instrument has been designed to be highly sensitive to flames, which were detected near the Embalse de San Juan as bright points”, he adds.
Technology developed in the Canary Islands for Earth observation
Image obtained by ALISIO-1 on 31 July. The combination of DRAGO-2’s SWIR bands highlights the areas affected by the wildfire in dark brown and reddish tones.
The IACTEC-Space team has also produced a comparison between images taken by DRAGO-2 and by Sentinel, a family of Earth observation satellites developed within the framework of the European Copernicus programme, on the same date. This comparison helps to contextualise the information obtained by the IAC satellite and highlights the complementary value of ALISIO-1 with respect to other Earth observation missions.
One of the main advantages of having an in-house mission is the ability to plan acquisitions over specific areas of interest. While Sentinel satellites follow a global observation schedule and are not designed to easily respond to specific requests, ALISIO-1 can be oriented and programmed to capture a given area when orbital conditions allow.
This flexibility made it possible to select an acquisition covering the full extent of the fire observed by DRAGO-2. By contrast, the Sentinel image available for that same date only included part of the affected area. Obtaining a specific observation through large missions, outside their regular planning, can be technically complex, subject to operational restrictions and, when equivalent commercial services exist, involve a high cost.
“The comparison shows images taken by DRAGO-2 and by Sentinel on the same day”, says Hernández Cabrera. “The image is cropped with respect to the complete DRAGO-2 image, since Sentinel did not capture the entire area of the fire”, he notes.
“ALISIO-1 continues to perform very well almost three years later”, says Alfonso Ynigo, Systems Engineer at IACTEC-Space and Technical Manager of the ALISIO-1 mission. Ynigo also underlines the importance of the support of the Cabildo de Tenerife for these developments and the collaboration of Open Cosmos, the company that developed the satellite platform and operates the satellite.
Comparison of DRAGO-2 and Sentinel-2 images taken on the same day over the area between the Burguillo and San Juan reservoirs, connected by the Alberche river.
ALISIO-1, an acronym for Advanced Land-Imaging Satellite for Infrared Observations, is the IAC’s first in-house satellite dedicated to Earth observation. The mission, led by the IACTEC-Space team, was launched in December 2023 and carries two state-of-the-art instruments: the DRAGO-2 infrared camera and a laser optical communications module. This technology makes it possible to advance towards higher-speed links between space and Earth and to characterise the atmosphere above the Observatorios de Canarias with greater precision.
The DRAGO-2 camera operates in the short-wave infrared, also known as SWIR (Short-Wave Infrared), a range invisible to the human eye but highly useful for multiple remote sensing applications. Compared with its predecessor, DRAGO-1, which achieved a resolution of around 300 metres per pixel, DRAGO-2 can observe with a resolution of approximately 50 metres per pixel, enabling more detailed studies of localised phenomena.
Applications for monitoring natural disasters
These capabilities make ALISIO-1 a useful tool for drawing up prevention and response plans for natural disasters. The satellite enables the monitoring of wildfires and volcanoes, studies of desertification and crop evolution, floods and fuel spills in oceans, among other applications. In the case of wildfires, the infrared range makes it possible to complement the information available at other wavelengths and contribute to the detection of affected areas or active fire fronts.
The acquisition and processing of these images demonstrate the capacity of the IACTEC-Space team to develop cameras, space missions and data-processing tools aimed at scientific, environmental and security applications. The possibility of generating images comparable with those of major Earth observation missions, such as Sentinel, also shows the value of small satellites as complementary, flexible and competitive platforms.
To make ALISIO-1 possible, the IAC has collaborated with Open Cosmos, responsible for the design, manufacture and operation of the satellite platform, as well as with other companies in the space sector, including Deimos and D-Orbit. This public-private cooperation has made it possible to place in orbit a mission led from the Canary Islands that demonstrates the potential of the archipelago as a technological node in the space sector.
The development of ALISIO-1 and DRAGO-2 forms part of the IAC’s strategy to consolidate its own space capabilities from the Canary Islands. IACTEC-Space, a programme integrated into IACTEC, the IAC’s technological and business collaboration space, receives financial and infrastructure support from the Cabildo Insular de Tenerife. The ALISIO-1 mission has also received funding from the Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades from NextGenerationEU funds, through the Plan de Recuperación, Transformación y Resiliencia of the Government of Spain.
A strategic line within the CELESTE project
With these new observations, the IAC reinforces the value of ALISIO-1 as a technology demonstrator and as a useful platform for Earth observation. The performance of DRAGO-2 in wildfire monitoring confirms the potential of this line of work developed by the Space laboratory of the CELESTE project to move towards future missions of greater complexity and broader exploitation of data obtained from small satellites.
This experience is particularly relevant for the development of the future Constelación Islas Canarias, an initiative of the Cabildo de Tenerife and the IAC aimed at providing the archipelago with its own recurring Earth observation capabilities through small satellites. The constellation will incorporate next-generation instruments developed in the Canary Islands and will make it possible to increase the frequency of observation and programme acquisitions adapted to the needs of the territory.