canonical: https://jentic.com/apis/nasa.gov

# NASA APIs

NASA publishes open data feeds for space and technology enthusiasts, educators, and researchers. On Jentic, NASA's two agent-ready APIs cover the Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD), a daily image or video with an astronomer-written explanation, and TechPort, NASA's repository of agency-funded technology development projects. Jentic maintains the OpenAPI specifications for both, keeping them validated so agents and developers can call them through structured tooling rather than scraping web pages.

## For AI agents

An agent can fetch NASA's daily astronomy image or video with its title, explanation, and HD media URL, and can browse NASA-funded technology development projects and pull detailed metadata for any project by ID, all through read-only requests.

## Scope

Use for: Reading NASA's daily astronomy image feed and browsing NASA-funded technology development project records via open, read-only endpoints.

Not supported:
- writing data
- asteroid tracking
- satellite imagery
- Earth observation
- real-time streaming
- budget analytics

## APIs

| API | Category | Endpoints | Description |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| NASA TechPort | developer-tools | 3 | Search NASA's repository of funded technology projects and retrieve detailed project metadata via three read-only endpoints. |
| NASA APOD | media | 1 | Fetch NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day with title, explanation, image or video URL, and concept tags via a single GET endpoint. |

## Which API to use

| Need | API | Why |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Display a daily astronomy image or video with an explanation | apod | APOD returns the Astronomy Picture of the Day with title, explanation, and image or video URL from a single GET endpoint. |
| Search or retrieve NASA-funded technology project records | asteroids_neows | TechPort lists NASA technology development projects and returns full metadata such as technology areas, lead centre, and partners per project. |

## Cross-API use cases

### NASA research and astronomy dashboard

A single dashboard pairs NASA's daily astronomy image with a searchable view of NASA-funded technology projects. TechPort supplies the project list and per-project detail, while APOD supplies a fresh daily hero image and explanation, giving researchers and educators both curated visuals and structured research data in one place.

Example prompt: Fetch today's APOD for the dashboard header, then call the TechPort project list and pull detail for projects whose technology area matches the user's topic.

### Daily NASA education feed

An education site or newsletter publishes a daily post combining NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day with a spotlight on a NASA-funded technology project. APOD provides the image and astronomer-written explanation, and TechPort provides a rotating project description to teach students what NASA is actively researching.

Example prompt: Retrieve the current APOD entry, select one TechPort project by ID for the daily spotlight, and format both into a single post for the education queue.

## Why Jentic

- **Setup:** Instead of registering a NASA api_key for APOD and separately handling TechPort's format-path convention by hand, you install Jentic One once and add each NASA API from the Jentic directory to your workspace, after which your agent can call either one.
- **Permission scoping:** Both NASA APIs are read-only, so your own rules can pin the agent to just the operations it needs, such as the daily APOD fetch or the TechPort project listing, and nothing that changes state.
- **Credential handling:** APOD's NASA api_key is stored encrypted by your own Jentic One instance and injected at execution time, never entering the agent's prompt or logs, while TechPort needs no credential and is still mediated per call.
- **Discovery method:** Agents search Jentic by intent, such as today's astronomy picture or list NASA technology projects, and Jentic returns the matching operation with its input schema so the agent calls the right endpoint without reading the reference docs.

## Related vendors

- **SpaceX** — Open launch, capsule, and rocket data that complements NASA astronomy and research feeds for a broader space dashboard.
- **Data.gov** — Broad US government open data across agencies for teams that need federal datasets beyond NASA-specific records.
- **USGS** — Another US science agency publishing open Earth and imagery data that pairs with NASA's space feeds.

## FAQ

### Which NASA APIs are available through Jentic?

Two NASA APIs are available: APOD, the Astronomy Picture of the Day feed, and TechPort, NASA's repository of funded technology development projects. Jentic maintains and validates the OpenAPI specification for each.

### Do the NASA APIs need different credentials?

Yes. TechPort is open and needs no authentication, while APOD requires a NASA api_key passed as a query parameter. NASA also accepts the value DEMO_KEY on APOD for low-volume testing before you register a personal key.

### Why does Jentic maintain the specs instead of NASA?

NASA does not publish OpenAPI specifications for APOD or TechPort. Jentic generates and keeps these specs validated against the live APIs so agents and developers can call them through structured tooling rather than scraping the NASA websites.

### Are these NASA APIs read-only?

Yes. Both APIs expose only GET endpoints. Agents can retrieve astronomy media and technology project metadata, but no operation writes or changes data on NASA's systems.

### Can an agent combine both NASA APIs in one workflow?

Yes. An agent can pair APOD's daily image and explanation with TechPort's project records to build a research dashboard or a daily education feed, calling each API independently within the same task.

### How current is the data from these NASA APIs?

APOD publishes a new entry each day and past entries are addressable by date, so responses are stable once published. TechPort project records update on NASA's agency cycles rather than in real time, so agents can cache them for hours.