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The Challenge: Converting Satellite Data
Disaster response depends on rapid, reliable information. AI in satellite imagery is helping close this gap by improving how quickly critical insights reach emergency services. Satellites already offer a vital advantage, capturing wide area views even when ground infrastructure is damaged or unreachable. They support early warnings, reveal the scale of incidents and provide updates during fast changing events such as floods, fires or landslides.
The difficulty lies in the amount of data they generate. Modern satellites collect huge volumes of imagery and sensor readings. Traditionally, all this information must be transmitted to the ground and processed before responders can use it. This workflow is slow. During a crisis, even short delays can limit the ability of emergency services to make informed decisions, deploy teams safely or predict how an incident will evolve.
Introducing the CISERES Project
The CISERES project, developed under ESA’s Civil Security from Space programme, led and co-financed by Deimos and supported by GINA Software, explores how artificial intelligence onboard satellites can dramatically shorten the time between data collection and delivery. Instead of sending raw data to Earth for analysis, the satellite performs the first stage of interpretation in orbit.
AI models continuously scan the incoming data stream to identify the most relevant elements. They filter out unnecessary information, detect signs of disaster activity and compress the essential findings. Only mission ready insights are transmitted to the ground, which means responders receive meaningful updates within minutes.
By using AI in satellite imagery, this approach transforms satellites from passive sensors into active decision support tools for responders. By shifting part of the processing into space, CISERES removes a major barrier that has long limited the speed of disaster intelligence.
A European Collaboration
CISERES brings together three European companies, each contributing a specialised part of the mission:
- Deimos
Works on the satellite mission design and develops the AI needed for analysing data directly in space. - Skylabs
Provides the computing systems that power the satellite, enabling it to run advanced AI models and process data onboard. - GINA Software
Develops the Earth Observation platform that turns the satellite’s processed outputs into operational information for emergency services.
Together, the partners deliver a complete workflow from data collection in space to actionable insight on the ground.
GINA Software: Turning Insight Into Action
GINA’s role in the CISERES project is to ensure that AI processed satellite data becomes practical, usable and seamlessly integrated into the tools emergency services depend on.
We are developing the Earth Observation platform that receives the filtered, high value outputs from the satellite and presents them in a format that supports real decision making. The software converts detailed satellite detections into clear map layers that show affected areas, risk zones and how conditions change over time.
Key capabilities include:
- Real time visualisation – adding satellite layers such as fire hotspots, flooded regions or land movement directly to incident maps.
- Time based change analysis – helping responders understand how conditions evolve throughout an operation.
- Resource and unit tracking – allowing teams to compare live positions with satellite identified hazards to plan safer routes and deployment.
- Shared situational awareness – ensuring all agencies access the same satellite insights within their existing workflows.
- Operational dashboards – giving commanders clear reports that combine field data, unit status and satellite observations.
Together, these features make satellite intelligence immediately actionable. Instead of being processed in isolation, CISERES insights become part of the operational picture used by dispatchers, field units and command staff. This supports faster reactions, coordinated decision making and safer operations during complex emergencies.
How CISERES Strengthens Disaster Response
The technology developed within CISERES offers several key benefits for public safety and crisis management agencies:
- Faster detection of critical events
- More frequent and reliable updates
- Clearer visibility during large scale or remote incidents
- Stronger coordination across emergency services
- Better resource allocation and safer deployments
- Reliable information even when ground networks fail
As natural disasters become more frequent and severe, early situational awareness becomes essential. CISERES provides a foundation for faster warnings, coordinated response and improved protection of communities.
A Global Opportunity
Although CISERES is a European initiative, its impact has global relevance. Many regions face similar challenges, including vast areas to monitor, vulnerable infrastructure and increasingly frequent climate driven disasters. By using AI in satellite imagery, satellite systems can deliver quicker early detection, more accurate risk insights and stronger operational planning on a global scale.
By showing how onboard AI speeds up the delivery of disaster intelligence, CISERES supports international efforts to create more resilient and better informed emergency response systems.
