Onboard AI · Earth Observation · Real-Time Intelligence

Intelligence,
decided in orbit.

Heliastra runs AI inference on the satellite itself — turning terabytes of empty land, sea, and sky into the handful of detections that matter, delivered in minutes, not hours.

AOI · AREA OF INTEREST · CONTINUOUS WATCH STATUS · DEMONSTRATED IN ORBIT LATENCY · HOURS → MINUTES
01 / The Bottleneck

Monitoring the planet rests on two flawed options.

Anyone who needs to watch locations on Earth faces the same problem — defence and border agencies, but also energy and infrastructure operators, insurers, environmental and disaster-response teams. Today's tools force a hard trade-off.

OPTION A

Aircraft & drones

Expensive to fly and limited in coverage. Every hour transiting to or loitering over empty terrain is capability that can't be elsewhere.

OPTION B

Satellite imagery

Delivered through a slow downlink-and-process pipeline. By the time imagery reaches the operator, hours have passed.

Core Bottleneck

EO data must be downlinked before it can be analysed — constrained by high latency and limited bandwidth. Operators then sift vast volumes, most of it empty land, sea, and sky, to find the handful of insights that matter: a vessel approaching a coastline, an illegal logging front, a new wildfire ignition, or unexpected activity at a remote site.

02 / The Heliastra Approach

Don't downlink the data. Downlink the answer.

Our solution runs AI inference on the satellite itself, processing EO data in real time and in orbit. Instead of transmitting terabytes of mostly empty terrain, the satellite decides onboard and sends only the actionable intel.

Legacy Pipeline

Hours
Capture imagery onboard sensor
Downlink terabytes bandwidth-limited
Process on ground high latency
Analysts sift volume scarce expertise
Insight, hours later often too late
⨯ High latency · High burden

Heliastra Pipeline

Minutes
Capture imagery onboard sensor
Inference in orbit AI model onboard
Decide onboard filter the noise
Downlink the answer only what matters
Actionable intel, now operationally relevant
✓ Minutes to intel · Continuous
03 / The Impact

A layer of persistent, always-on coverage.

Hours→Min
Latency to actionable intelligence
The decision is made before the data would have even reached the ground.
↓ Workload
Analyst burden falls dramatically
Only relevant detections are transmitted — not endless frames of empty terrain.
24 / 7
Continuous monitoring
The system surfaces updates only when something actually matters.
04 / The Interface

Task it in plain English.

Existing EO analytics demands extensive domain knowledge, keeping the capability locked to a small pool of specialists. Our agentic, natural-language interface collapses that barrier — putting in-orbit intelligence in the hands of any analyst or operator, with minimal training.

A Cue scarce assets

Persistent space-based coverage points expensive aircraft, drones, and field teams at the locations that matter — instead of spending limited time and budget searching empty terrain.

B No domain expertise required

Operators task the system and pull insights conversationally, without the deep multi-domain specialism the task usually demands.

heliastra · tasking console
05 / Why Heliastra

An inference layer that doesn't lock you in.

Competitors are increasingly vertically integrated, locking customers into their own satellite bus and EO data stack. For any serious operator, that's a liability — the vendor with the best sensing technology changes year to year.

Hardware-agnostic

Runs across providers

Our inference layer runs across hardware and data providers. You keep the freedom to mix platforms as missions, programs, and budgets shift.

No vendor lock-in

Best sensor wins

Avoid being tied to a single bus or data stack. As the best sensing technology changes, your intelligence layer stays constant.

Proven in orbit

Deployed, not theorised

A tested pipeline for pushing models to satellites and large models already running on-orbit — delivery competitors can't yet match.

06 / Who It's For

Built for anyone who needs to see, fast.

The need to watch the planet at operationally relevant timescales spans sectors. Wherever the answer matters more than the raw data — and wherever it matters now — Heliastra closes the gap.

Defence & Security

Organisations with a mandate to monitor locations of interest. Heliastra delivers actionable detections at speed, without flooding analysts with empty frames.

Environment & Climate

Detect wildfires, deforestation, illegal logging, and changing conditions the moment they appear — not hours later once the imagery has been downlinked and processed.

Energy & Infrastructure

Persistently watch pipelines, grids, ports, and remote assets across vast areas, surfacing only the anomalies that warrant a closer look.

Emergency & Disaster Response

When minutes matter, get a live read on floods, fires, and damage — and cue scarce aircraft, drones, and field teams to where they are needed most.

Request Briefing

See what's happening — at operationally
relevant timescales.

Heliastra is ready to brief teams across defence, environment, energy, and emergency response on in-orbit inference, deployment, and integration with existing monitoring programs.

Arrange a Capability Briefing