nasa/api-docs

api.nasa.gov

api-docs: gh-pages

nasa/api-docs repository contains the front-end for http://api.nasa.gov/. This site is currently CNAME mapped to NASA domain, but in the event the page is down, you can access it through Github Pages here: http://nasa.github.io/api-docs/ .

This is the current iteration of api.nasa.gov.

This project contains API listings of available NASA public APIs and well as a GSA API key form to allow NASA branded API pages to be integrated with the GSA api.data.gov system. Our listing is currently incomplete as we are currently displaying the more simple API's in our .json storage system.

For other US government agency API pages, see https://api.data.gov/

Features

• Obtain an API key by filling out the form in the Generate API Key Section
• Information about the usage capabilities of your API in the Authentication Section
• A list of a few NASA publics API's and how to use them in the Browse APIs Section

Libraries and Software

api.nasa.gov utilizes the following libraries and resources:

• NASA Web Design Service(CSS and JS): A style system created in order to help NASA websites have a more unified look. You can find their info here https://nasa.github.io/nasawds-site/
• JQuery (JS): A library that simplifies the javascript coding process

The API information that our site hosts is currently archived in our apis.json folder which is then read and generated into the page dynamically.

NOTICE: NASA does not host/develop these APIs

We only map the orginal developer's endpoint to one of our api.nasa.gov endpoints. Basically, api.nasa.gov acts as a passthrough service. Please do not contact us with technical questions about a particular API as we do not have access to most API production environments. You can follow links on our site to get more information about each API and use the contact information on those pages to reach the people who control each API.

If you are a NASA civil servant or contractor and wish to add an API to api.nasa.gov, please contact [email protected].

If you are behind the NASA firewall, you can find additional details on https://developer.nasa.gov/pages/OpenInnovation/Table_of_Contents_Public/2021/05/14/API-NASA-GOV.html

Site Developer: Darith Yim, Daniel Rendon, Jeffery Rubio, Tessa Brazda

NASA Official: Nidhi Wahi

Last updated: 03/26/2024

api-docs's Issues

APOD API documentation could use some updating.

Dan has added new functionality to the APOD API such as ?hd and ?direct but the official API reference still only states that 3 parameters are available:

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
date	YYYY-MM-DD	today	The date of the APOD image to retrieve
concept_tags	bool	False	Return an ordered dictionary of concepts from the APOD explanation
api_key	string	DEMO_KEY	api.nasa.gov key for expanded usage

I have had first hand experience of the issue this causes by wrongly thinking a parameter doesn't exist, writing code for a workaround, only to realise the only place the parameter was mentioned was in the issues section.

Updated version (parameters that I know of.)

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
date	YYYY-MM-DD	today	The date of the APOD image to retrieve
concept_tags	bool	False	Return an ordered dictionary of concepts from the APOD explanation
api_key	string	DEMO_KEY	api.nasa.gov key for expanded usage
hd	boolean	False	Retrieve the URL for the high resolution image

Go to https://api.nasa.gov/planetary/apod/direct(insert_api_call) to retrieve the CORS enabled APOD image.

quicker access to examples

When you visit the current front page, it is difficult to find example usage and docs for the listed APIs. It is now buried at https://api.nasa.gov/api.html. The first thing under Getting Started should be example usage. No one reads text, they go directly to linked examples.

Think about what the endpoint design says

think about the expectations for the endpoint design -

• will there be other planets?
• will they allow the same sub-components? (e.g. images, temperature)

Make clear what makes this API special

That is, why does someone need this over Google Maps or Mapbox API.

Ensure language is clear

e.g. address what kind of address?

Correct APOD endpoint

Consider brief bullet points in the intro to say what's in the API

the api key signup form example 404s

When one creates an api key, an example return comes up and that one currently 404s

hyperlink the urls

People want to start clicking on the endpoint urls

APOD API expose image credit

Hi again, sorry for all the requests.

I know on the APOD website it makes a point to credit the images to their owners and has a disclaimer about sharing images on the about page (http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/lib/about_apod.html).

Would it be possible to expose the image credit in the API response so we can build in handling for those not in the public domain?

Demo key limits

If they are shared across all, they may run out asap.

fix contact us link

HTTPS

It should be enabled and default, possibly even forced.

https://https.cio.gov

Enable CORS on Landsat API

As per #37, the Landsat API does not currently send an Access-Control-Allow-Origin header with responses.

No 'Access-Control-Allow-Origin' header is present on the requested resource. Does APOD allow CORS?

It looks like https://api.data.gov/nasa/planetary/apod doesn't allow CORS? I can access it via my web browser just fine with my API_KEY, but not from my development web server running on localhost. Thus I get:
No 'Access-Control-Allow-Origin' header is present on the requested resource. Origin 'http://localhost:8080' is therefore not allowed access.

I'm just wondering if that can be changed - to allow CORS? I was hoping to avoid JSONP ...
Thanks!
-Ben
Benjamin H Boruff
[email protected]
benjaminboruff.github.io

example API query 404s

I just created an API key and the resulting page (and email that was sent to me) had an example API request just like this: https://api.nasa.gov/api.nasa.gov/nasa/planetary/apod?api_key=MY_API_KEY&format=JSON. But that returns a gh-pages 404.

apod chokes on youtube videos

https://api.data.gov/nasa/planetary/apod?concept_tags=True&date=2014-03-24&api_key=DEMO_KEY

Is it possible to provide index listings?

Reconsider the 3 column layout?

It's a bit distracting.

The examples displayed on the right should be available through a link

Someone should be able to see the prepared url that would resolve the return shown on the right

Change the contact-us link in the api key signup

At http://nasa.github.io/api-docs/#apply-for-an-api-key, after filling out the form and requesting the key, the default language includes a contact us link that goes to https://api.data.gov/contact/. It would be better to have that link to https://github.com/nasa/api-docs/issues or the NASA API team's preferred contact mechanism.

It looks like this is hard baked into https://api.data.gov/static/javascripts/signup_embed.js, so it may be that the api.data.gov team needs to create an agency-specfic version of the file to do this.

@GUI - any thoughts?

APOD api suggestion: add ability to return images based on a number or date range

I'm thinking of something like:

https://api.nasa.gov/planetary/apod?count=10&api_key=DEMO_KEY

to return the 10 most recent images. Or:

https://api.nasa.gov/planetary/apod?startDate=2015-04-27&endDate=2015-01-01&api_key=DEMO_KEY

to return images between the start and end dates.

APOD API response with date

Wondering if it would be possible to expose the posted_at date in the response body just so it's easy to compare the expected post with the response?

redo authentication paragraph

I need a key if I'm making a mobile app?

This could be worded more clearly.

Consider version numbers in headers or the url

Broken link to API template

There is a broken link on the API info page. Look for the text that says, "Once you have a running service and a robust API in place, submit an API template describing your API..." The words API template link to https://github.com/nasa/blob/staging/API_template/your_api.html, which is a 404 error. (Maybe it's a private Github repo?)

forcing redirect onto HTTPS (consistency in docs)

offer more examples or field reference information

ensure example responses are consistent with actual responses

e.g. - cloud score wasn't there, links weren't shortened.

Look into embedded Plunkr/JSFiddle into API pages

HD image missing in APOD response

I just found that the APOD API returns only link to the image in standard resolution, not the additional HD image that is sometimes available when visiting the webpage directly.

Like here: http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap150427.html
and the HD image: http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/1504/SpaceStationTerminator_Caxete_2048.jpg

It should be easy to add it to the API without even breaking existing apps that are using it.

APOD: Only Content-Type and cache-control headers return non-Null values

These are the headers the APOD API response are supposed to return, but I'm only getting the Content-Type and cache-control headers as non-Null values. Anyone else getting Null for the other header values? The X-RateLimit-Remaining is kind of important to know!

accept-ranges:bytes
access-control-allow-origin:*
age:0
alternate-protocol:80:quic,p=0
cache-control:no-cache
Connection:keep-alive
content-encoding:gzip
Content-Length:662
Content-Type:application/json
Date:Wed, 03 Jun 2015 16:24:45 GMT
Server:nginx
vary:Accept-Encoding, Accept-Encoding
via:1.1 varnish-v4
x-cache:MISS
X-RateLimit-Limit:30
X-RateLimit-Remaining:24
x-varnish:15443927

Don't we also need something like an access-control-expose-headers for the X-RateLimit-Remaining header on the server? (see section 5.3 Access-Control-Expose-Headers Response Header at w3.org). Or am I missing something?

ensure more consistent error handling

Earth (Landsat) API Image Compiling

I'm currently building a web app with the Earth (Landsat) API, and am frustrated at its limited functionality. The images are quite small (0.025° x 0.025°), so trying to grid out a map at any reasonable zoom level requires hundreds of requests.

It'd be quite easy to compile images server-side and then serve such compiled images. Off the top of my head, this could be done in PHP (example).

The idea is that you would be able to send a request of bounds instead of a single lat/lon, like so:

[[northWestCorner],[northEastCorner],[southWestCorner],[southEastCorner]]

And the API would return a stitched png of all the 0.025° x 0.025° pngs within those bounds. This would drastically decrease the number of requests required to grid out a map.

open links in new tab

When opening a link (example query) it should open in a new window target="_blank"

Lead with APOD

APOD query by attributes other than date.

Hello, I absolutely love APOD and I was so happy to discover your API last week. I've been working on a ruby gem as a side project and was wondering if you have any plans to allow query by keywords?

That way you could send something like
https://api.nasa.gov/planetary/apod?q=nebula&concept_tags=True&api_key=DEMO_KEY
And get back posts that have the word "nebula" in it.

Thanks!

Connection error response issues/architecture for api.nasa.gov

This is hard to explain ...
This weekend, there were obviously some sort of connection issues to the APOD api endpoint. I was a bit perplexed as to why my app failed to deal with this issue. My AJAX requests use promises to deal with both successful and failed http get requests to the APOD api.

So I logged the response from api.data.gov to my console, and it was clear: a "failed" connection to the APOD endpoint looks like it is detected by something called a HTTPConnectionPool, which redirects the request (or is a result of redirection itself). This results in a "successful" connection and a response with a JSON payload with error and message (Admins have been notified) properties.

That is why my app failed! The AJAX request was not allowed to fail! That is a problem, IMHO ... at least from a JavaScript/AJAX/Frontend developer perspective. Had the request just failed to connect at all, my app would have immediately responded, alerting the user to the failure. Since the request did not, could NOT fail, then my app tried to process the JSON payload as if it were a regular, successful JSON data response from APOD. Well, that meant I had to rewrite the app to check for an "error" property in the JSON response, and deal with it accordingly rather than relying on the AJAX promise handler.

This has a negative side effect in that it takes a LONG time for the response to return to the app! And, IMHO, is probably putting an unnecessary load on the backend infrastructure. I could be wrong about that, though. It certainly is unnecessary, from my perspective, to receive any info about a failed resource. It just needs to fail to connect. THAT, I can deal with! It is much faster and more efficient from a frontend perspective to deal with a refused/failed connection, than to deal with a successful but wrong connection!

In other words, a failed connection is generic, thus efficiently dealt with via promises on the frontend. A successful but wrong connection (i.e. a request to one resource that leads to a response from a different resource) makes dealing with the error very difficult since it makes frontend promises irrelevant. And figuring out the format of the JSON "failure" response, and what to do with it, may require a case-by-case analysis of each resource to figure out what "failure" means, as opposed to a generic connect failure.

Long story short: If I had my druthers, I would rather get a failed connection, full-stop, than a successful connection (that I don't want) telling me that what I wanted is unavailable. Does that make sense? :) Outage info could be posted elsewhere.

I hope not TLDR!

human voice recording tag for future space sounds endpoint

It would be neat to identify a human voice in one of the space sound files before the user opens it, maybe using this code.

What are the possible "media_type" values in the APOD response?

I know there are "image" and "video" (my app broke when today's url pointed to a youtube video instead of an image, but it was cool to fix it :) Anything other than those two types?

key regeneration process, docs to redirect to api.data.gov keys

Consider an examples page

Clarify response codes

organizational disconnect

The organization of the left-hand side index of the index.html versus api.html is confusing. There are repeated entries, but not everything is repeated. I think that the examples listed at http://api.nasa.gov/api.html should be a first-order element on the front-page.

Consider interactive documentation

Discuss markdown vs html editing for continued dev

Add a description and URL

On the homepage of https://github.com/nasa/api-docs, it will be helpful and welcoming to add a v. short blurb about what this repo is for and the url nasa.github.io/api-docs/ to the URL section.

This will make the project more developer friendly.

API registration form doesn't work for me

When I submit the form on the API registration form, it POSTs to https://api.data.gov/api-umbrella/v1/users.json?api_key=SOME_KEY with a 403 Forbidden error in response. Firefox 38.0.5 on Windows 8.1.

Screenshot:

https

The documentation should require https, as it did before.

sample queries

create a sample query for each. maybe even surface these at the top.