Aegis — CASSINI Hackathon 2026 Prototype

(11th CASSINI Hackathon · EU Space for Water, April 2026)

Aegis is a multi-hazard citizen alert and rescue coordination platform built for the 11th CASSINI Hackathon under the "EU Space for Water" challenge theme. The CASSINI Hackathon is the European Commission's flagship space hackathon, run across multiple European cities to challenge teams to build solutions powered by EU space programmes — Copernicus (Earth observation) and Galileo (positioning + Search & Rescue).

Our team (Maurice Boendermaker, Thijs van Steenbeek, Mathijs de Niet, Mark Salloum and Harika Ireddy) built Aegis as a working prototype that turns raw Copernicus satellite observations into clear, staged alerts citizens can act on — even when terrestrial networks fail.

About the Project

Aegis is a proof of concept demonstrating how European space infrastructure can be combined into a single, citizen-facing early-warning platform that scales across hazards. It directly responds to the rising frequency of climate-driven flood, drought, wildfire, storm and heatwave events across the EU, and to the "Space for Water" call for tools that turn satellite data into actionable civil-protection workflows.

The Valencia 2024 (DANA) flash flood — 200+ casualties, billions in damage, less than 12 hours of warning — is the demo scenario shipped with the prototype.

Key Features

• Multi-hazard module system — Flood, drought, wildfire, storm and heatwave; each driven by an open AegisModule format that defines stage thresholds, satellite sources and SOS semantics. New hazards can be added without changing the app shell.

• 5-stage EFAS alert scale — Monitoring → Watch → Warning → Severe → Emergency, with perceptually-matched OKLCH colours and consistent semantics across every hazard module.

• Live OSM map with real river gauges — Leaflet map showing flood-extent zones, real water-level sensors (CHJ / SAIH for Spain, Rijkswaterstaat for the Netherlands), road closures and active SOS pins.

• Citizen + Rescue views — One app, two roles. A toggle in settings switches between the citizen interface and the firefighter / rescue-unit operations dashboard.

• Galileo SOS button — Press-and-hold emergency report that transmits the user's precise EGNOS-grade coordinates to the nearest rescue unit, with the Galileo Search & Rescue Service as offline fallback.

• OSRM evacuation routing — Foot-routing to the nearest assembly point with turn-by-turn directions, step-thumbnail maps and live progress along the route.

• Offline-first PWA — Service worker caches map tiles and critical alerts; falls back to Galileo broadcast when terrestrial networks are down. Installable on iOS and Android.

• 24-language EU coverage — All 24 official EU languages selectable; reverse-geocoded place names via Nominatim.

• Phone-frame demo shell — Desktop preview renders inside a device frame for stakeholder pitches; mobile and PWA modes strip the chrome and respect real OS safe areas (dynamic island, home indicator).

Tech Stack

Layer	Technology
Frontend	React 18, TypeScript, Vite, React Router, Leaflet + React-Leaflet
Backend	Python (FastAPI, Uvicorn, httpx)
PWA / Build	vite-plugin-pwa, Workbox, Sharp icon pipeline
Data	Copernicus EMS + C3S · Sentinel-1 SAR · Sentinel-2 NDVI · EFAS / GloFAS · CDS ERA5 · Galileo HAS + EGNOS · OSM tiles · Nominatim · OSRM · Open-Meteo

Hackathon Context

The "EU Space for Water" challenge addresses a fast-growing societal problem:

• 2024 Valencia (DANA) flash floods — 200+ killed, billions in damage, well under 12 hours of warning
• Climate-driven hazards across the EU are intensifying — flood, drought, wildfire, storm, heatwave
• Copernicus observes them all, but raw satellite data isn't actionable for non-expert citizens
• Galileo / EGNOS delivers sub-metre positioning and a Search & Rescue channel that works without a mobile network
• Key question: how do we turn EU space infrastructure into something a citizen can use during the moments that matter most — and that civil-protection units can still rely on when the network goes down?

Aegis demonstrates a single, multi-hazard answer: stage-based alerts, role-aware navigation, and offline-first rescue coordination — all powered by the EU's existing space programmes.

Project Structure

cassini_hackathon_2026/
├── backend/      FastAPI service — Open-Meteo ingest, river-level model, EFAS stage endpoint
├── frontend/     React + TypeScript PWA — citizen + rescue UI, Leaflet maps, offline shell
└── docs/         Internal specs and notes

Running locally

# Backend
cd backend
pip install -r requirements.txt
uvicorn main:app --reload          # http://localhost:8000/docs

# Frontend
cd frontend
npm install
npm run dev                         # http://localhost:5173

Team

• Maurice Boendermaker
• Thijs van Steenbeek
• Mathijs de Niet
• Mark Salloum
• Harika Ireddy

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Built for the 11th CASSINI Hackathon · EU Space for Water · April 2026. Live demo: https://aegis.mauriceb.nl