How Open-Source Satellites Spot Missile Launches

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.