CASSINI is a European Commission and ESA (European Space Agency) initiative supporting space-tech startups. Hackathons are short-format (48-72 hour) competitions where teams from across Europe use Copernicus / Sentinel data to solve real problems. In September 2023 our team joined a round on fire smoke monitoring. We didn”t take the main cash prize, but we gained much more: direct access to pre-processed Sentinel-5P data, contacts with ESA mentors, and the technical foundation for what we built in 2024-2025.
Copernicus / Sentinel is the EU”s flagship Earth observation mission. CASSINI opened the door to this data for us. Photo: ESA, Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO).
What CASSINI is
Structure:
- Funded by the EU through Horizon Europe.
- Coordinated by ESA (European Space Agency) + EUSPA (EU Agency for the Space Programme).
- Formats: Hackathons, Mentoring, Business Accelerator, Prize.
Goals:
- Stimulate new applications on top of Copernicus (Earth observation), Galileo (navigation), EGNOS.
- Support space-tech startups.
- Bring younger generations into space-tech.
Hackathons — format:
- 48-72 hours of intensive work.
- Themes: climate, agriculture, security, transport, health, energy.
- Teams of 3-7 people from different countries.
- Prizes: mentor hours, cloud credits (AWS, Azure), occasionally small cash prizes €5-15K.
Our participation — September 2023
Round theme: “Climate adaptation: using space data to monitor wildfire smoke impact”.
Our team: 5 people — 2 engineers, 1 atmospheric modeler, 1 UX, 1 BD. We registered through the official CASSINI platform.
The 48-hour task: build a prototype web dashboard showing:
- Active fires (Sentinel-3 SLSTR — hotspot detection).
- Smoke plume (Sentinel-5P CO + aerosol optical depth).
- Spread forecast (combined with meteo data).
Our approach (technical):
- Python + sentinelsat library — pull fresh Sentinel-5P CO data from the last 24 hours.
- Python xarray — process netCDF4 files.
- Leaflet.js — visualization on a map.
- Prototype for three Ukrainian regions: Kharkiv, Kherson, Polissia.
Results
What we achieved:
- A working demo dashboard in 48 hours.
- The ESA team rated us in the top 20 out of 120 teams in the round.
- We did not win a cash prize.
What we got that mattered more than money:
- Access to Copernicus Data Space — free for participants, with API tokens.
- Mentoring from EUSPA — 10 hours of consultation after the hackathon.
- Contacts with other teams (Poland, Estonia, Portugal, Bulgaria).
- A clear understanding of what satellite data can and can”t do for our specific problem.
What we learned — technically
Sentinel-5P TROPOMI (CO, NO₂, SO₂, formaldehyde):
- Daily global coverage.
- Resolution 7×3.5 km (good for regional monitoring, too coarse for block level).
- Data latency 6-12 hours.
- For tracking smoke from large fires — ideal.
Sentinel-3 SLSTR (thermal channels):
- Hotspot detection (thermal anomaly).
- Daily for most of Ukraine”s territory.
- Wider coverage than MODIS-VIIRS (NASA), with better resolution in some bands.
Copernicus ECMWF (meteo):
- High-resolution atmospheric data.
- Integrates into our WRF stack.
What we learned — process
Hackathon as a format: good for testing ideas in 48 hours. You can”t build a product, but you can validate key technology-stack hypotheses. We used this to be sure whether to integrate Sentinel-5P into our platform — the answer turned out to be yes.
International team: pair programming with Polish and Estonian engineers — fast learning of new tools. ESA mentoring — more about how to get the data efficiently than about modeling or visualization.
Integration into YourAirTest after CASSINI
2024:
- Sentinel-5P data integrated into our smoke dashboard.
- Co-validation of our WRF forecasts with satellite data.
- Reports for State Emergency Service (DSNS): several cases where the satellite confirmed our model”s smoke-spread forecast.
2025:
- Daily automated pipeline: a cron job pulls fresh Sentinel data, checks against WRF, triggers an alert if there”s a meaningful divergence (indicator of a missed event).
- 2022-2025 satellite archive — used as backbone for post-event analysis.
For the Ukrainian deep-tech ecosystem
CASSINI is open to Ukraine since 2022:
- After the war began, the EU/ESA expanded access for Ukrainian teams.
- EU Space Fund provides Copernicus access free of charge.
- Ukrainian teams can apply on equal terms with EU participants.
We recommend Ukrainian startups consider it for:
- Climate tech, agriculture monitoring, wildfire detection.
- Transport and logistics with GNSS (Galileo).
- Cybersecurity with GNSS signals.
- Space defense / dual-use.
How to apply: follow rounds at cassini.eu (typically 2-3 rounds per year).
FAQ
Are the cash prizes large?
Usually €5-15K for hackathon winners. Match-Making rounds give mentoring, not cash. The real value is data access and the network.
Do we need to be a registered company in the EU?
No, it”s now open to Ukraine (since 2022 with partner country status).
Do we need space expertise?
No. We”re atmospheric modelers, not astronomers. ESA values application-level expertise more than deep space engineering.
Is 48 hours of hackathon worth it?
Yes, if you target the space-data ecosystem. The data access and contacts pay off across the next 1-2 projects.