Satellite-Powered Analytics for Resource Conservation
District-level environmental change, measured from open Earth-observation data and traceable back to the scene it came from.
Live demo · Methodology · API contract · Architecture
SPARC turns satellite imagery into a before and after a district administrator can act on. Pick a place, pick two same-season windows, and read the change in three land-cover proxies — surface water, vegetation, and built-up area — with the method, the scene IDs and the coverage statistics attached to every figure.
It is built around one rule: a number you cannot trace is not a result. Every value on screen carries its provenance, and a measurement that could not be made to standard is reported as unavailable with a reason rather than as a zero.
SPARC outputs are satellite-derived SDG proxy indicators, not official UN SDG indicators. They describe observed surface patterns and do not establish a cause.
| 1 · Target — search a place or pick from the catalogue. The satellite slews and the globe brings it into view. |  |
| 2 · Read — the district on a real basemap. Switch measurement laterally, drag the time handle between the two observations and watch the scene respond. |  |
| 3 · Verify — coverage, threshold sensitivity, scene inventory, algorithm version and parameter hash, in a sheet that rises over the map. |  |
Boundaries are real administrative geometry, not bounding boxes — including multi-part districts such as Greater London's 33 boroughs and New York's five counties.
Requires Node 20+ and Python 3.11+.
# 1 — build the client and serve the whole product from one origin
cd apps/web
npm ci
npm run build
node serve.mjs 8080 # → http://localhost:8080That is the complete demo path: the globe, the analytical client and the bundled result packs, from a single static origin with no API process and no network.
To exercise the contract-backed API instead:
# 2 — optional: the FastAPI service
python -m venv .venv && .venv/bin/pip install -r requirements.txt
python -m uvicorn apps.api.app.main:app --port 8000
# then rebuild the client against it
VITE_API_BASE_URL=http://localhost:8000 npm --prefix apps/web run buildReport packaging (PDF + evidence bundle) needs the API. Copy .env.example to
.env and set GEMINI_API_KEY if you want AI-assisted drafting; without it the
deterministic local generator is used.
Browser — globe-led entry (orbital-website/)
│
└── analytical client (apps/web/)
├── DemoTransport → bundled manifest + checksum-verified JSON packs
└── ApiTransport → FastAPI /api/v1
├── bounded fixture repository (default)
└── precomputed Earth Engine pack adapter
Both transports converge on one view model, so a screen renders identically regardless of where the bytes came from. Neither path performs request-time raster processing, database access or provider calls.
Client React 18 · TypeScript · Vite · MapLibre GL · three.js Service FastAPI · Pydantic v2 · ReportLab Data Sentinel-2 L2A via Earth Engine · geoBoundaries (ODbL) · Natural Earth Basemap OpenStreetMap via CARTO, with a bundled vector fallback for offline
The judged path runs with the network unplugged. Result packs, boundaries, fonts and the fallback basemap are all bundled; the raster basemap is probed once and degrades to bundled vectors when it is unreachable. Nothing about the analysis changes either way — the basemap is context, never data.
python -m pytest # contract, repository, reporting, geo
npm --prefix apps/web run typecheck # strict TypeScript
npm --prefix apps/web run build # type-check + production bundle
node orbital-website/test-geo.mjs # coordinate parsing and projection
node orbital-website/test-e2e.mjs # 29 checks driven over CDPThe end-to-end suite drives a real browser through the globe, the satellite click, targeting, slew and marker placement, and fails on any console error.
Start here — requirements · delivery status · demo script
Full index
- Indicator methodology — formulas, thresholds, QA gates
- Validation plan
- Data sources · open-source reuse
- Technical research · source register
- System architecture
- Data pipeline · pipeline hardening
- API contract · OpenAPI · schemas
- Data storage · offline strategy
- 3D asset integration
- Decision records · security review
- Secrets are server-side environment variables only.
VITE_values are compiled into the browser bundle and may hold non-secrets exclusively. - Read-only endpoints need no authentication; job creation is restricted.
- Layer APIs resolve opaque allowlisted IDs and never fetch caller-controlled URLs.
- Raw scenes, working rasters, credentials and signed URLs are excluded by
.gitignore.
Boundary geometry is geoBoundaries gbOpen (ODbL 1.0, share-alike). Basemap tiles are © OpenStreetMap contributors, © CARTO. Imagery is Copernicus Sentinel-2 accessed through Google Earth Engine. Third-party code and data retain their original licences — see open-source reuse and data sources before redistributing.
Apache License 2.0 — permissive, with an explicit patent grant.
This covers SPARC's own source. It does not relicense the data: geoBoundaries is ODbL 1.0 with a share-alike obligation, and OpenStreetMap tiles carry their own attribution terms. NOTICE lists what applies to what.
See CONTRIBUTING.md and the git workflow.