Space

Get the latest spaceflight news articles from SpaceflightNewsAPI, covering rocket launches, space missions, satellite deployments, space policy, and commercial space industry developments. Returns article titles, summaries, publication dates, source names, and image URLs. Useful for space news aggregators, science dashboards, and aerospace industry monitoring tools.

Get the International Space Station's current position with enhanced detail, including latitude, longitude, altitude above sea level, and orbital velocity. Provides more technical orbital data than the basic ISS location endpoint. Useful for advanced ISS tracking applications, satellite visualization tools, and educational apps that demonstrate orbital mechanics concepts.

Get the Two-Line Element (TLE) set for the International Space Station - the standard format used to describe satellite orbits. TLE data includes orbital inclination, eccentricity, argument of perigee, mean motion, and epoch. Used by satellite tracking software (like SGP4 propagators) to predict the ISS position at any future time. Essential for building custom orbital prediction tools and pass-time calculators.

Get NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD), featuring a stunning space image or video along with a professional astronomer's explanation. Optionally specify a date to retrieve past entries. Running since 1995, APOD is one of the most popular science outreach programs. Ideal for science education apps, daily content feeds, desktop wallpaper apps, and space enthusiast communities.

Get a list of asteroids making close approaches to Earth today, from NASA's Near Earth Object Web Service (NeoWs). Returns asteroid names, estimated diameters, closest approach distances, relative velocities, and whether they are classified as potentially hazardous. Useful for space awareness apps, science education tools, and astronomy dashboards that track objects passing near our planet.

Browse photos taken by NASA's Curiosity rover on Mars, organized by Martian sol (solar day). Returns image URLs, camera names, and earth dates for each photo. Specify a sol number to browse different days of the mission. Useful for space exploration apps, educational content, Mars visualization projects, and anyone who wants to see the surface of another planet through real NASA cameras.

Get a list of all humans currently in space right now, including their names and which spacecraft they are aboard (ISS, Tiangong, etc.). Typically 6-12 people at any given time. A fascinating real-time dataset for science education apps, space news dashboards, and trivia features. Updated whenever crew missions launch or return.

Get the current real-time position of the International Space Station, including latitude, longitude, and the timestamp of the reading. The ISS orbits Earth every ~90 minutes at about 28,000 km/h. Useful for ISS tracker apps, educational tools showing the station's path over Earth, and notification systems that alert users when the ISS is passing overhead. Data from the ISS tracking API, updated every few seconds.

Get details about the most recent rocket launch worldwide, including mission name, launch provider, rocket type, launch site, date/time, and mission outcome. Covers launches from SpaceX, NASA, Roscosmos, ESA, ISRO, and all other space agencies and private companies. Useful for space news feeds, launch history databases, and aerospace industry tracking tools.

Get a list of scheduled upcoming rocket launches from around the world, including mission names, launch providers, rocket types, planned launch dates, and launch sites. Covers all major space agencies (NASA, ESA, JAXA) and private companies (SpaceX, Rocket Lab, Blue Origin). Useful for launch countdown apps, space event calendars, and aerospace enthusiast communities.

Get current space weather alerts and warnings from NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC). Returns active geomagnetic storm watches, solar radiation storms, radio blackout alerts, and other space weather advisories. Each alert includes severity level, issue time, and description. Essential for aurora chasers, satellite operators, aviation planners, and power grid managers who need to monitor geomagnetic disturbances.

Archive of issued NOAA SWPC alerts: geomagnetic storm watches, solar radiation storms, radio blackout warnings, and more. Filter by ?start and ?end. Ideal for post-mortems on specific events, training data for alert prediction models, and historical context when an alert fires today.

Get recent solar flare events from NOAA SWPC, including flare class (A, B, C, M, X), peak time, begin/end times, and source active region. M-class and X-class flares can cause radio blackouts, GPS disruptions, and enhanced aurora displays. Useful for amateur radio operators monitoring propagation conditions, aurora forecasters, space weather researchers, and satellite operators assessing radiation risk.

Historical GOES X-ray flare flux readings archived continuously. Filter by ?energy band (short/long) and ?start/?end. Useful for studying solar flare distributions, correlating flares with aurora or radio-blackout events, and long-term analysis of solar-cycle activity.

Get recent planetary K-index (Kp) values from NOAA SWPC, the primary indicator of geomagnetic storm activity. The Kp index ranges from 0 (quiet) to 9 (extreme storm). Values of 5+ indicate geomagnetic storms visible as aurora at lower latitudes. Returns a time series of recent Kp readings. Critical for aurora prediction apps, satellite drag calculations, GPS accuracy monitoring, and space weather dashboards.

Full time series of planetary Kp index readings collected continuously from NOAA SWPC. Filter with ?start and ?end. Valuable for aurora forecasters correlating past activity with sightings, space weather researchers studying storm distributions, and dashboards plotting geomagnetic trends over months or years.

Get recent daily sunspot numbers from NOAA SWPC, tracking solar activity levels. Sunspot numbers correlate with the 11-year solar cycle and predict space weather intensity. Higher sunspot counts mean more frequent solar flares, coronal mass ejections, and aurora displays. Useful for solar cycle tracking dashboards, long-term space weather forecasting, amateur astronomy tools, and climate research applications studying solar irradiance variability.