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NASA Open APIs website screenshot

NASA Open APIs

NASA Open APIs is the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's unified, public developer portal exposing space, earth science, planetary, heliophysics, and bioscience datasets at api.nasa.gov. A single API key issued through api.data.gov authenticates the family of APIs including APOD, Asteroids NeoWs, DONKI, Earth, EONET, EPIC, Exoplanet Archive, InSight, Mars Rover Photos, NASA Image and Video Library, TechPort, TechTransfer, SSD/CNEOS, Satellite Situation Center, GeneLab, TLE, and the Vesta/Moon/Mars Trek WMTS services. Together with 617+ open-source repositories on github.com/nasa they represent one of the most comprehensive open federal API surfaces in the world. As a US federal civilian agency NASA's data and software products are generally in the public domain, supporting a global ecosystem of researchers, educators, developers, and citizen scientists.

agent ready

Real signal across most facets with visible, nameable gaps — the contract exists but is thin, or the portal is good while governance and commercial terms are absent.

Kin Score

API Evangelist profiles NASA Open APIs the way a machine reads it — 88 machine-readable artifacts across 34 APIs, pulled from the provider's own public surface and indexed so a developer, an analyst, or an AI agent can evaluate it against every other provider on the network.

Every provider in the network is reduced to the same set of machine-readable artifacts — OpenAPI contracts, event specifications, GraphQL schemas, runnable collections, pricing and rate-limit signals, security posture, OAuth scopes, and the agent surfaces (MCP servers and skills) that let software drive the API on its own. We profile them because the interface is the part of a company you can actually inspect: it is a truer signal of what a provider does than any marketing page. From those artifacts we compute the Kin Score — NASA Open APIs scores 46.8/100 (developing), with a separate agent-readiness read of 48/100 (agent ready). The full breakdown is below, followed by every artifact we hold — each card links through to its machine-readable definition on apis.io.

Kin Score

This is the API Evangelist rating — a single, repeatable read computed from the artifacts on this page. Green fill is points earned; the red track is points possible, so every bar shows earned-versus-possible at a glance.

Kin Score Kin Score How this is scored →
scored 2026-07-27 · rubric v0.5
Composite quality — 46.8/100 · developing
Contract Quality 15.5 / 25
Developer Ergonomics 7.0 / 20
Commercial Clarity 4.2 / 20
Operational Transparency 0.7 / 13
Governance 8.8 / 12
Discoverability 9.3 / 10
Regulatory · Government & Public Sector 8.1 / 15
Agent readiness — 48/100 · agent ready
Machine-Readable Contract 18 / 18
Agentic Access Contract 15 / 15
MCP Server 0 / 12
Machine-Readable Auth 10 / 10
Idempotency 0 / 9
Stable Error Semantics 0 / 8
Request/Response Examples 0 / 7
Rate-Limit Signaling 7 / 7
Typed Event Surface 0 / 6
Agent Skills 0 / 5
Well-Known Catalog 0 / 4
Consent & Bot Identity 0 / 3

How we profile NASA Open APIs

Each block below is one kind of artifact we hold for NASA Open APIs. For each we say what it is and why it earns a place in the profile, then list every one we've indexed — capped at two rows, scroll within the panel for the rest.

APIs 34

Each API is captured as its own OpenAPI definition — every operation, parameter, and response. This is the single most useful machine-readable description of what an API does, and it's what lets us score, lint, mock, and generate against it without asking the provider for anything.

Individual APIs this provider publishes, each with its own machine-readable definition.

NASA Open APIs Album API

The Album API from NASA Open APIs — 1 operation(s) for album.

NASA Open APIs APOD API

The APOD API from NASA Open APIs — 1 operation(s) for apod.

NASA Open APIs Asset API

The Asset API from NASA Open APIs — 3 operation(s) for asset.

NASA Open APIs Asteroids API

The Asteroids API from NASA Open APIs — 3 operation(s) for asteroids.

NASA Open APIs CAD API

The CAD API from NASA Open APIs — 1 operation(s) for cad.

NASA Open APIs Categories API

The Categories API from NASA Open APIs — 2 operation(s) for categories.

NASA Open APIs DONKI API

The DONKI API from NASA Open APIs — 11 operation(s) for donki.

NASA Open APIs Earth API

The Earth API from NASA Open APIs — 2 operation(s) for earth.

NASA Open APIs Enhanced API

The Enhanced API from NASA Open APIs — 3 operation(s) for enhanced.

NASA Open APIs Events API

The Events API from NASA Open APIs — 1 operation(s) for events.

NASA Open APIs Fireball API

The Fireball API from NASA Open APIs — 1 operation(s) for fireball.

NASA Open APIs Layers API

The Layers API from NASA Open APIs — 1 operation(s) for layers.

NASA Open APIs Locations API

The Locations API from NASA Open APIs — 1 operation(s) for locations.

NASA Open APIs Magnitudes API

The Magnitudes API from NASA Open APIs — 1 operation(s) for magnitudes.

NASA Open APIs Manifests API

The Manifests API from NASA Open APIs — 1 operation(s) for manifests.

NASA Open APIs Natural API

The Natural API from NASA Open APIs — 4 operation(s) for natural.

NASA Open APIs NHATS API

The NHATS API from NASA Open APIs — 1 operation(s) for nhats.

NASA Open APIs Observatories API

The Observatories API from NASA Open APIs — 1 operation(s) for observatories.

NASA Open APIs Patents API

The Patents API from NASA Open APIs — 2 operation(s) for patents.

NASA Open APIs Photos API

The Photos API from NASA Open APIs — 2 operation(s) for photos.

NASA Open APIs Projects API

The Projects API from NASA Open APIs — 2 operation(s) for projects.

NASA Open APIs Rovers API

The Rovers API from NASA Open APIs — 1 operation(s) for rovers.

NASA Open APIs SBDB API

The SBDB API from NASA Open APIs — 2 operation(s) for sbdb.

NASA Open APIs Scout API

The Scout API from NASA Open APIs — 1 operation(s) for scout.

NASA Open APIs Search API

The Search API from NASA Open APIs — 1 operation(s) for search.

NASA Open APIs Sentry API

The Sentry API from NASA Open APIs — 1 operation(s) for sentry.

NASA Open APIs Software API

The Software API from NASA Open APIs — 1 operation(s) for software.

NASA Open APIs Sources API

The Sources API from NASA Open APIs — 1 operation(s) for sources.

NASA Open APIs Spinoff API

The Spinoff API from NASA Open APIs — 1 operation(s) for spinoff.

NASA Open APIs Stations API

The Stations API from NASA Open APIs — 1 operation(s) for stations.

NASA Open APIs TAP API

The TAP API from NASA Open APIs — 2 operation(s) for tap.

NASA Open APIs TLE API

The TLE API from NASA Open APIs — 2 operation(s) for tle.

NASA Open APIs Weather API

The Weather API from NASA Open APIs — 1 operation(s) for weather.

NASA Open APIs WMTS API

The WMTS API from NASA Open APIs — 1 operation(s) for wmts.

Scroll within the panel for all 34 ·

Open Collections 17

Open, tool-agnostic collections carry the same runnable value as Postman without locking you to one client — the portable, forkable form of the same exercise.

Open, tool-agnostic API collections (OpenAPI-derived and Bruno).

Scroll within the panel for all 17 ·

Rate Limits 1

Rate limits are the difference between a demo that works and a production integration that doesn't fall over. Publishing them is an operational-transparency signal — and a hard requirement for any agent that plans its own throughput.

Documented rate limits and quota policies.

Nasa Gov Rate Limits

0 limits

RATE LIMITS

Features 25

The notable capabilities this provider advertises, captured as structured features so they can be searched and compared instead of read one landing page at a time.

Notable capabilities this provider offers.

Single unified developer portal at api.nasa.gov fronted by api.data.gov key infrastructure
Single api_key query parameter authenticates against every major endpoint
Free DEMO_KEY mode for evaluation (30 req/hr, 50 req/day per IP)
Personal API key default rate limit of 1000 requests per hour per key
X-RateLimit-Limit / X-RateLimit-Remaining response headers on every call
APOD - Astronomy Picture of the Day with date range, count, and HD URL support
Asteroids NeoWs - feed, lookup, and browse for near-earth asteroids
DONKI - eleven space weather event types (CME, GST, IPS, FLR, SEP, MPC, RBE, HSS, EONET, WSAEnlilSimulations, notifications)
Earth - Landsat 8 imagery and asset metadata by latitude/longitude/date
EONET - curated natural events tracker (12 categories, events/sources/categories/layers/magnitudes)
EPIC - DSCOVR full-disc Earth imagery with sun/moon/spacecraft positions
Exoplanet Archive - IPAC TAP service with ADQL queries returning CSV/JSON/VOTable
Mars Rover Photos - Curiosity, Opportunity, Spirit, Perseverance imagery by sol or Earth date
InSight Mars Weather - last seven sols of weather at Elysium Planitia (historical)
NASA Image and Video Library - search/asset/metadata/captions/album
SSD/CNEOS - small body database, close approach data, Sentry impact risk, fireball, NHATS
TechPort - NASA technology project portfolio data
TechTransfer - patents, software, and spinoff publications
TLE - two-line element sets for earth-orbiting satellites
Satellite Situation Center - geocentric spacecraft locations and geophysical regions
GeneLab - omics data from spaceflight bioscience experiments
Vesta/Moon/Mars Trek - OGC WMTS tile services for planetary basemaps
Public domain content - NASA imagery and data are generally not copyrighted (with limited exceptions)
617+ public repositories on github.com/nasa including cFS, openmct, cumulus, trick
Aligned with US Federal Open Data policy and the Foundations for Evidence-Based Policymaking Act

Scroll within the panel for all 25 ·

Semantic Vocabularies 1

JSON-LD contexts give the data shared meaning across APIs. We profile them because semantics are what let a machine reconcile 'customer' here with 'customer' somewhere else.

JSON-LD contexts and semantic vocabularies used across these APIs.

Nasa Gov Context

30 classes · 0 properties

JSON-LD

Spectral Rules 1

Governance rulesets we run against this provider's specs — the automated checks behind parts of the score. Profiling them makes the quality bar explicit and re-runnable, not a matter of opinion.

NASA Open APIs API Rules

5 rules · 4 warnings

SPECTRAL

JSON Schema 4

Standalone JSON Schema definitions describe the data models behind the API. We profile them so the shapes are validatable on their own — useful long after a single request is forgotten.

Standalone JSON Schema definitions for this provider's data models.

ApodEntry

9 properties

JSON SCHEMA

EonetEvent

8 properties

JSON SCHEMA

MarsRoverPhoto

6 properties

JSON SCHEMA

NearEarthObject

11 properties

JSON SCHEMA

Examples 2

Real request and response payloads are what turn a spec from abstract into obvious — and they're one of the twelve things an agent needs to call an API correctly on the first try.

Example request and response payloads for these APIs.

Security Posture 2

Authentication, domain security, vulnerability disclosure, and trust-center signals — the evidence that a provider takes security seriously enough to document it. We profile it because you can't govern what you can't see.

Authentication, domain security, vulnerability disclosure, and trust-center signals.

Nasa Gov Authentication

apiKey · 1 scheme

SECURITY

Nasa Gov Domain Security

TLSv1.3 · HSTS · DNSSEC · DMARC

SECURITY

Agentic Access 1

An x-agentic-access contract marks which operations are safe for an agent to run on its own and which need a human in the loop. It is the difference between an API an agent can use and one it can use safely.

Recommended x-agentic-access execution contracts for AI agents.

Nasa Gov Agentic Access

62 operations · 1 acting

62 operations · 1 acting

AGENTIC

Resources

Every other property we hold for NASA Open APIs — documentation, portals, status pages, policies, and corporate surface — grouped by the job it does, following the integrator's arc from getting started to running in production.

Get Started 9

Portal, sign-up, and the first successful call

Scroll within the panel for all 9 ·

Agent Surfaces 1

MCP servers, agent skills, and machine-readable catalogs

Access & Security 2

Authentication, authorization, and security posture

Operate 3

Status, limits, changes, and where to get help

Commercial 2

Pricing, plans, and the legal terms of use

Company 1

The organization behind the API

← All providers · Data indexed from github.com/api-evangelist/nasa-gov · machine-readable index on apis.io