ESA Announces Successful Completion of Isolation Plus Pilot

14/05/2021 

The European Space Agency (ESA) has announced the successful completion of Astrosat’s Isolation Plus pilot trial. The trial began in November 2020 with three organisations on board and grew to include fourteen over the four-month pilot trial period.

With support from ESA and the UK Space Agency (UKSA), Astrosat were able to gather user requirements from charities throughout Scotland and provide a data visualisation tool to identify the ‘hidden vulnerable’ (people who were previously independent but whose circumstances have recently changed due to the Covid-19 pandemic).  

The focus of the organisations consulted range from voluntary organisations, to charities dedicated to Alzheimers research, prevention, and support for those who suffer, to groups targeting transport poverty. What all these charities had in common was the issue they faced: a lack of resources to dedicate to data investigation, gathering and analysis. Isolation Plus, powered by Astrosat’s ORBIS engine, provides crucial data in easily digestible visuals, slashing the resource requirements of such tasks. 

Steve Lee, CEO of Astrosat said ‘It’s always great to see a project succeed but Isolation Plus is particularly satisfying. Helping charities to save their limited resources, while still extending their essential outreach, became even more crucial as we watched the infrastructure that people usually depend on shutdown throughout lockdown. ESA and the UKSA have been essential in supporting us to democratise space data and their backing has allowed us to develop a tool that can continue be used even after society has recovered from the pandemic. When we said “every problem has a space solution,” even I never thought that would include social care and mental health.’