We are the independent thermal-detection service for rocket launches. We see every launch on Earth — from NOAA GOES and JMA Himawari geostationary weather satellites — within 30 to 90 seconds of ignition.
| Founded | 2025 |
|---|---|
| Founder | See founder profile |
| Service type | Independent thermal-detection for rocket launches |
| Data sources | NOAA GOES-18 (GOES-West), NOAA GOES-19 (GOES-East), JMA Himawari-9 |
| Detection band | ABI band 7, 3.9 µm shortwave infrared |
| Spaceports covered | 17 active worldwide |
| Detection latency | 30 to 90 seconds from ignition |
| Confidence threshold | 0.70 (false-positive rate < 5%) |
| Platform | Web, iOS 17+, Android 12+ |
| App Store | id6762911197 |
| Contact | ops@launchdetect.com |
| Affiliations | None — independent commercial service |
A rocket's exhaust plume is several hundred kelvin hotter than the surrounding background. NOAA GOES-18, NOAA GOES-19, and JMA Himawari-9 geostationary weather satellites continuously sense Earth in the 3.9 µm shortwave infrared band (ABI band 7). LaunchDetect's pipeline extracts thermal anomalies frame-by-frame, geocodes each against a 17-spaceport registry, derives the plume azimuth from the imagery geometry, and issues a verified detection record once thermal, spatial, and temporal criteria are met.
Every detection is a primary-source artifact. The underlying NOAA / JMA frames are publicly archived (NOAA CLASS, JMA Open Data); any LaunchDetect claim is independently verifiable.
Space-domain awareness analysts (SDA TAP Lab, DoD), launch operators tracking competitor activity, insurance underwriters, aerospace journalists, astronomy enthusiasts, amateur satellite trackers, and the curious.