Anduril Industries has announced the successful demonstration of a new satellite-based sensor designed to track other spacecraft that may be hiding their maneuvers in Earth’s shadow.

Funded with Anduril’s internal capital, the company’s oven-sized satellite launched on a SpaceX rideshare mission in July with a package of tech demo payloads: an edge-compute processor, a power-management system adaptable to different mission types, and a long-wave infrared space sensor capable of detecting other objects in orbit.

Anduril reported on the success of the tech demo mission Tuesday. The company’s satellite, named Anduril-216, flies about 590 km (366 mi) above Earth, spending about one-third of each orbit in darkness. Anduril-216’s night passes allow its infrared imager to shine.

“This is a unique sensor that allows us to take imagery in long-wave [infrared],” said Gokul Subramanian, Anduril’s senior vice president of engineering. “What’s unique about that is it’s got a huge dynamic range. It has very low solar exclusion, so we’re blocked by the Sun very rarely, and we can see things in full dark.”

Filling a gap

The US military and a growing number of commercial data providers use a network of radars and optical sensors on the ground and in space to monitor satellite traffic. Anduril acquired one of the commercial satellite-tracking companies, ExoAnalytic Solutions, earlier this year. But there’s a gap in optical tracking as satellites fly in Earth’s shadow, so space traffic monitors could temporarily lose track of a spacecraft if it performs a maneuver in orbital night.

The Space Force is charged with tracking satellites for two primary reasons. First, military commanders want to know if an adversary moves its satellite in a threatening manner. Second, the Space Force issues traffic alerts to global satellite operators if there’s a risk of a collision.

“Right now, we don’t have ground sensors in our adversaries’ sovereign lands, and then in the eclipse period where we are relying heavily on visible sensors, the satellites that are not illuminated by the Sun, we can’t see those,” said Adam Thurn, vice president and general manager of orbital systems at Anduril. “With the long-wave infrared space sensor, we’re looking to close that gap.”

Anduril’s long-wave infrared sensor works by detecting heat signatures from spacecraft, even in periods of eclipse. It provides a “unique capability for us to witness when an adversary or other resident space objects are maneuvering during those eclipse periods, where in the past we’ve been fairly blind,” Thurn said.

In creating the infrared space sensor, engineers applied imaging technology Anduril uses in its autonomous weapons for use in space. Anduril released a single image Tuesday from the sensor on Anduril-216 showing an infrared view of the Moon above Earth’s horizon. The Moon image offers just a taste of what the instrument can do, Thurn said.

“The long-wave infrared capability we have on orbit can do both unresolved and resolved imagery,” Thurn said, suggesting Anduril’s sensor could be used to inspect other satellites in orbit if it flies close enough. For now, Thurn said Anduril is focusing on optimizing its tracking sensor for low-Earth orbit, but it could be used in other orbits, and eventually in cislunar space near the Moon.

Apex Space, a satellite-manufacturing startup, built the spacecraft platform for Anduril-216. Subramanian said Anduril has no plans to start its own satellite production line. Instead, Anduril foresees buying third-party satellite platforms and integrating them with sensor and compute modules to perform a range of different missions in space.

“You’re seeing that today with Anduril-216, where we started with a simple mission, which was how do we track satellites, especially in these eclipse periods where the US currently does not have the ability to maintain custody,” Subramanian said. “And we designed a mission around that.”

The compute module on Anduril-216 is designed to fuse data from different kinds of sensors, such as infrared or visible imagers, and generate tracking solutions on its own, without intervention or analysis from the ground.

Subramanian said Anduril’s current focus is on acquiring space domain awareness data for sale to the US military, not selling entire satellites or sensors to the government. “At present, Anduril is not offering this system as a merchant supplier,” he said. “That could change in the future.”