SatVu launches HotSat-3 with Leonardo infrared sensor

SatVu’s HotSat-3 launched on Oct. 1, 2026, aboard SpaceX’s Transporter-18 from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, carrying a Leonardo infrared sensor that doubles the company’s thermal imaging capacity. The third satellite in SatVu’s planned thermal imaging fleet, HotSat-3 will join HotSat-2, which launched in March 2026 aboard SpaceX’s Transporter-16 mission and began delivering commercial imagery in June 2026. Once HotSat-3 completes commissioning, the two operational satellites will enable SatVu to image any location on Earth every 24 hours. Anthony Baker, SatVu’s CEO and co-founder, stated that the capacity allows customers to collect more imagery, monitor more sites, or revisit locations more frequently, emphasizing the value of repeated observations in understanding operational changes.

The SuperHawk infrared detector, developed by Leonardo at its Southampton facility, enables HotSat-3 to map global heat emissions from buildings and industrial infrastructure by detecting radiated thermal energy. The sensor detects heat escaping from rooftops, walls, pipelines, and ventilation ducts, allowing continuous day-and-night imaging by converting surface temperature variations into thermal maps. The SuperHawk’s design allows SatVu to monitor industrial activity around the clock.

HotSat-3’s 3.5-meter resolution thermal imagery surpasses older systems like Landsat, which operates at roughly 100-meter resolution, enabling detection of heat sources as small as vehicle engines, generators, and industrial subcomponents. The high-resolution data allows analysts to observe movement and changes in activity through thermal video clips up to 60 seconds long, enhancing situational awareness across sectors. This level of detail reveals operational tempo, shutdowns, restarts, and maintenance activity at refineries, LNG facilities, and other industrial sites by tracking heat signatures at asset and subcomponent levels. High-resolution mid-infrared data helps analysts identify changes in production and facility activity, providing an independent means of verifying industrial output.

Defense and intelligence agencies can use HotSat-3’s thermal data to assess activity at strategic sites and critical infrastructure, including nighttime or remote locations with limited ground reporting. By tracking changes through repeated observations, the data gives defense and intelligence agencies an independent layer of situational awareness. Through its subscription service, SatVu delivers thermal monitoring that serves commercial enterprises, energy operators, as well as government defense customers. This offering provides a means of independently verifying industrial activity and emissions, and it supports assessments of energy efficiency, emissions compliance, and critical infrastructure operational status.

Previous imaging campaigns demonstrated the system’s ability to track localized industrial activity, including refining activity in Cuba, petroleum processing in India, and LNG facility output in Australia. These applications show how the data supports customers in assessing energy efficiency, emissions compliance, and operational status across diverse industrial sectors. The ability to track operational adjustments and continuous output at critical facilities provides commercial and government customers with an independent verification tool that does not rely on ground-based reporting.

The launch follows a challenging period for the company. HotSat-1, SatVu’s first satellite, launched in June 2023 and returned first images in October 2023 but ceased operations in December 2023 due to a power circuit anomaly in the camera, resulting in a £10 million insurance payout. The failure prompted SatVu to order HotSat-2 and HotSat-3 from SSTL in 2024, ensuring continuity in its constellation development. In February 2026, the company raised £30 million, approximately $40 million, bringing total equity funding to £60 million with support from the NATO Innovation Fund and a Defence Innovation Loan from the UK Ministry of Defence. The funding helped attract private investment and supported SatVu’s expansion plans, including satellite development and constellation growth.

The funding helped attract private investment and supported SatVu’s expansion plans, including satellite development and constellation growth.

HotSat-3 will enter commissioning before starting commercial operations, with launches for HotSat-4 and HotSat-5 already secured and HotSat-6 components under contract. SatVu plans to deploy up to 10 satellites by the end of 2029, targeting polar and mid-inclination orbits to increase revisit frequency for priority locations.

The thermal data also supports climate resilience efforts by providing time-series observations of industrial heat pollution, urban heat variations, and facility activity changes. Analysts can discern heat sources such as vehicle engines, vessel wakes, and power plant cooling effluent plumes, contributing to broader environmental monitoring and climate research.