Episode Details

The gap between classified military surveillance and publicly available satellite data has shrunk to months, not decades. In this episode, we explore how free data streams from Sentinel-3, Landsat, and NASA's FIRMS system can detect ballistic missile launches using the same basic physics as the US Space-Based Infrared System. From thermal infrared atmospheric windows to revisit cycles and latency tradeoffs, we unpack what open-source remote sensing reveals — and what it can't — about the shape of classified capabilities.