Anduril-216 satellite spots other satellites in Earth's shadow

How does Anduril-216 see satellites in the dark?

Seeing a satellite from the ground or from another spacecraft normally depends on one thing: it has to reflect sunlight. When it slips into Earth's shadow, it goes completely invisible. That gap is a nice opportunity for combat or sabotage satellites, assuming any are up there already. It also matters for something more mundane: damaged, dead satellites drifting unseen in those zones can be a real hazard.

Anduril-216 doesn't need sunlight at all. It looks for heat, and it actually does better when its target sits in darkness, because the contrast is clearer.

Why is hiding from it so hard?

Every working satellite gives off some heat. In space, radiation is the only way to get rid of the excess, so a satellite can't simply stop glowing in infrared without cooking its own electronics. Concealing a spacecraft from Anduril-216 would therefore be a very awkward task.

The problem grows if more of these watchers are launched and spread across different orbits. One satellite covers only so much sky, but several would make hiding in the dark far less of an option.

For now, this is a single satellite at 590 km, already in service rather than a plan on a slide. What it has actually spotted hasn't been shared.