News | Feb 25, 2025
HEX20 has been awarded research funding from/through the prestigious Sir Ross and Sir Keith Smith Fund to collaborate with five Australian Universities, NASA Goddard, and NASA Marshall Space Flight Center to detect, characterize and fight bushfires from space.
The University of Adelaide, UNSW, Edith Cowan University, UTS, and the University of Newcastle have joined NASA to study catastrophic bushfires that cause widespread damage to life and property.
The Smith Fund grant will support the development of advanced space mission concepts to understand how bushfires ignite and how to triage ignitions that may evolve into catastrophic fires using state-of-the-art NASA sensors. This study is part of the larger engagement between NASA and the Australian University Consortium called the IGNIS mission.
The initial airborne trials just concluded in WA; the next phase to install ground-based lightning detectors will begin in a few weeks, followed by NASA’s airborne campaign toward the middle of the year.
This study will help shape the mission architecture for the space segment to be launched in the next 24-36 months. ARC Laureate Fellow Prof Derek Abbott from the University of Adelaide said, “This project will bring experts from NASA to help fight Australian bushfires, helping to save countless lives.” Prof Jason Sharples from UNSW is an expert in modelling extreme bushfires. He stated that “space-based data has a critical part to play informing the development of next-generation fire propagation models. This will support the better prediction of the dynamic behaviour of extreme bushfires.”
Prof Paulo deSouza, the principal investigator of the IGNIS mission said, “This project aims to provide emergency services with earlier notice of lightning-sparked bushfires and could save properties, lives, livestock, preserve our infrastructure. We have our firefighters in the field trying to combat fires when they are already out of control, so we want to give them this edge. “
“The complex mix of fuel type, terrain, weather, and lightning energy in a strike all combine to indicate how fires might ignite, and which fizzle out. Understanding this is fundamental to wildfire prediction” said Prof Ed Kruzins UNSW Canberra Space.
Dr Aaron Pereira, a NASA engineer instrumental in setting up the consortium, reflected that “aligning with the NASA decadal survey is the key to making this partnership work”
“We are thrilled to work with our university partners, NASA Goddard, and NASA Marshall Space Flight Center on this exciting project.” said Mr. Lloyd Jacob Lopez, Chief Executive Officer at HEX20.
