The BIRD Mission

Abstract

For hot spot events as forest and vegetation fires, volcanic activity or burning oil wells and coal seams a dedicated space instrumentation does not exist. Sensors being used now for the observation of these events have some drawbacks because they are not designed for the hot spot investigation. For the near future there are missions planned with a new generation of cooled infrared array sensors. The German BIRD (Bi-spectral Infrared Detection) mission will answer a lot of technological and scientific questions related to the operation of a compact bi-spectral infrared push-broom sensor on board of a micro satellite and related to the detection and investigation of fires from space. The DLR small satellite mission BIRD is dedicated to the remote sensing of hot spot events like vegetation fires, coal seam fires or active volcanoes from space and to the in-orbit verification and demonstration of new micro-satellite technologies. The total mass of the complete spacecraft is 92 kg