Muon Space has successfully launched the VanZyl-2 satellite for Hydrosat aboard SpaceX’s Transporter-14 mission, marking the fourth deployment of its mission-optimized Halo™ spacecraft platform. Achieving contact just six minutes after deployment, the satellite is confirmed healthy and is currently undergoing commissioning. Built to deliver high-resolution thermal infrared and multispectral data, VanZyl-2 represents a major advancement in Earth observation for agricultural monitoring, drought detection, and security applications.

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Muon Space Launches Hydrosat’s VanZyl-2 Mission in Fourth Launch of Its Mission-Optimized Halo™ Spacecraft Platform

Successful contact confirms the satellite is healthy and the commissioning process is progressing to enable delivery of critical high-resolution thermal infrared data for agricultural monitoring.

 

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., June 24, 2025 /PRNewswire/ — Muon Space, a leading provider of end-to-end space systems specializing in mission-optimized satellite constellations, today announced the successful launch and initial contact six minutes after deployment with VanZyl-2, its latest mission satellite developed for Hydrosat, a company leveraging thermal satellite data and AI to address critical global challenges in food production, security, and natural resource management. The satellite is healthy and currently undergoing commissioning. The mission represents a significant advancement in Earth observation capabilities supporting agricultural productivity, drought detection, and security use cases.

Built on Muon’s mission-optimized Halo™ platform, VanZyl-2 launched aboard SpaceX’s Transporter-14 mission from Vandenberg Space Force Base. The satellite integrates Hydrosat’s VanZyl-2 high-resolution multispectral and thermal infrared (IR) imaging instruments. These sensors will provide continuous monitoring of critical Earth systems.

The launch expands Hydrosat’s constellation, advancing its goal of delivering daily thermal and multispectral imagery to support agricultural monitoring, environmental intelligence, and additional capabilities such as infrastructure assessment and nighttime detection of ships and other heat sources. The Hydrosat VanZyl-2 mission, leveraging Muon’s Halo satellite platform, increases collection capacity by 4X over the initial VanZyl-1 mission – enabling the capture of eight million square kilometers of data per day. By building out this constellation, Hydrosat aims to offer unprecedented insight into planetary heat dynamics and water stress across ecosystems for users and AI-driven applications.

“This launch perfectly exemplifies our mission-optimization philosophy in action. Rather than forcing customers to adapt to a generic satellite platform, we’ve optimized our Halo platform specifically around Hydrosat’s thermal IR requirements. The result is a spacecraft that delivers significantly more collection capacity than the original mission – that’s the power of purpose-built space systems,” said Greg Smirin, President of Muon Space.

“This mission marks a major step forward in Hydrosat’s vision to deliver game-changing insights to address agricultural challenges worldwide,” said Scott Soenen, CTO of Hydrosat. “Partnering with Muon Space has enabled us to rapidly deploy our thermal infrared sensing technology on a high-performance platform, accelerating our ability to support agriculture and environmental monitoring at scale.”

This mission highlights the flexibility of Muon’s Halo platform and the company’s ability to deliver high-performance, mission-ready spacecraft on accelerated timelines. By leveraging a vertically integrated approach to satellite development and operations, Muon enables customers to rapidly deploy and scale advanced sensing capabilities without the burden of building or operating their own satellites.

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