Opening satellite data for city planning

Aerial photo of Kalasatama, Helsinki

SPACE4Cities is a Horizon Europe funded pre-commercial procurement project that aims to procure replicable solutions, via smart use of European satellite data, for better and more dynamic management of public space, green areas, transport infrastructure and city maintenance—and the cities’ overall resilience.

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Satellite in orbit

Utilizing existing data

The goal of the project is to utilise the earth observation services provided by ESA’s Copernicus program and the positioning services provided by ESA’s Galileo program to improve the dynamic management of public areas and infrastructure. These ESA services will likely have to be combined with other data sources in order to come to innovative and efficient and cost-effective services that meet the cities’ needs.


Proof-of-concept first

Satellite data is already being used to some extent by cities in various countries to manage public areas and infrastructure, but proof-of-concepts and standards are not yet available. Furthermore, some parts of satellite- and space-based services need to reach a more mature stage in their development in order to be employable in urban settings. In other words, a demonstration of the technical, economic maturity of solutions is required through piloting innovative solutions with the further capacity building actions taking the results further.

Dinner on the street in the center of Helsinki

SPACE4Cities will run from
1 February 2024 until 31 July 2027.

The SPACE4Cities project has received funding from the EU’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme. In total, the project budget reaches 5.2 million euros, of which 2.87 M€ is allocated for Pre-Commercial Procurement to be used to procure innovative solutions from participating suppliers.