Global cloud communications platform, Infobip, has partnered with the European Space Agency (ESA) to improve the delivery of asteroid impact alerts via Infobip’s Voice API solutions. Using Infobip’s platform, ESA personnel now receive instant voice calls, enabling faster, 24/7 alerts for potential asteroid impacts.

Understanding the trajectories of asteroids, particularly those approaching Earth, known as near-Earth objects (NEOs), is crucial and time sensitive. As single asteroid impact 65 million years ago wiped out most life on Earth, it is vital for the ESA to identify all hazardous asteroids to better understand their physical characteristics and the potential consequences of an impact.

Marketing Technology News: MarTech Interview with Omri Shtayer, Vice President of Data Products and DaaS at Similarweb

Previously, ESA personnel were notified via email, often when they were offline and unavailable. By integrating Infobip’s Voice API solutions, ESA’s Meerkat Asteroid Guard, responsible for analysing and tracking NEOs can now send real-time voice call alerts, regardless of the time or location, greatly accelerating the process of alerting personnel with timely and invaluable data about potential asteroid impacts to prevent potential harm to Earth.

Richard Moissl, Head of European Space Agency’s Planetary Defence Office: “This new partnership allows us to respond faster and more effectively to potential imminent asteroid impacts, ensuring we collect critical data to better understand these natural threats. Receiving instant alerts has significantly improved our response times and our ability to study these events.”

Following a successful testing phase, it was found that the voice messaging system works in 100% of applicable cases, with key results revealing the following: rapid alerts, as two high-probability asteroid impact predictions resulted in voice call alerts sent within five minutes of the detection of the probable impacts; and timely data collection, while the event caused no damage due to the impactor being very small, ESA was able to collect valuable scientific data from the events. Importantly, the partntership has significantly improved communication, as Infobip’s solution ensures real-time alerts, allowing faster decision-making during critical asteroid follow-up situations.

Mirza Hadžić, Sales Director Europe at Infobip, said: “Infobip’s platform is built to ensure critical communications reach recipients without delay. By enabling ESA to receive instant voice calls, we’re helping them make faster decisions and gather crucial data for planetary defence. This partnership shows how mobile technology and instant messaging apps can support scientific and planetary protection goals.”