AISSat-4 Maritime Monitoring

The AISSat-4 maritime ship tracking microsatellite successfully launched on March 30, 2026, aboard the SpaceX Transporter-16 Rideshare from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.

SFL Missions developed AISSat-4 for the Norwegian Space Agency (NOSA) in less than a year on its SPARTAN 6U nanosatellite platform. It carries a single payload — a miniaturized Automatic Identification System (AIS) receiver built by Kongsberg Seatex of Trondheim, Norway. The ninth AIS satellite built on an SFL bus for Norway, AISSat-4 was developed on a fast turnaround to expand NOSA’s maritime situational awareness network.

Norway launched the first ship-tracking satellite of its operational AISSat series in 2010 and then funded a parallel series of larger NorSat microsatellites. While the smaller AISSat nanosatellites each carry a single payload focused solely on collection of AIS signals, the NorSats each operate a ship-tracking device along with one or more technology demonstration payloads. AISSat-4 has the capacity to capture 1.5 million unique AIS signals every day even in crowded shipping lanes.

Norway’s leadership in space-based maritime monitoring includes nine spacecraft spanning more than 15 years, all of which were developed with SFL.