M
API Matrix

Open Notify API

⭐ Beginner's Pick Science & Math / No Auth Required Beginner HTTP
Free to Use Varies (check documentation)
72 Score
Grade B
Visit Official Site Compare Alternatives

Overview

Open Notify provides real-time data about the International Space Station (ISS) — including its current location, the astronauts currently aboard, and pass times over your location. No API key or sign-up is needed; just make a GET request and get live space data instantly. It is a fantastic beginner API for learning how to fetch and display real-time data from a public source.

💡

Beginner Tip

The ISS location endpoint updates every few seconds, so you can build a real-time tracker by calling it on an interval — try polling every 5 seconds to show the ISS moving across a map.

Available Data

Open Notify data via REST API
JSON-formatted response data
Freely accessible without authentication

Example Response

JSON Response 
{
  "status": "success",
  "data": {
    "result": "Data from Open Notify",
    "description": "ISS astronauts, current location, etc",
    "timestamp": "2025-01-15T10:00:00Z"
  }
}

Field Reference

iss_position Contains the current latitude and longitude of the ISS as decimal degree strings.
latitude Current latitude of the ISS in decimal degrees (inside the iss_position object).
longitude Current longitude of the ISS in decimal degrees (inside the iss_position object).
timestamp Unix timestamp (seconds since epoch) indicating when this position was recorded.
message Status of the request — "success" if the data was retrieved correctly.

Implementation Example 

const url = "http://open-notify.org/Open-Notify-API/";
const response = await fetch(url);
if (!response.ok) throw new Error(`Request failed: ${response.status}`);
const data = await response.json();
console.log(data);

What Can You Build?

Note: These code examples are AI-generated and unverified. Always refer to the official API documentation for accurate usage.

Common Errors & Troubleshooting

HTTP blocked in browser or HTTPS app Open Notify uses HTTP (not HTTPS), which modern browsers and some frameworks block by default.
✓ Call the API from your backend server (Node.js, Python, etc.) and relay the data to your frontend to avoid mixed-content issues.
"status": "failure" on pass times endpoint The latitude or longitude parameters are missing or out of valid range.
✓ The /iss-pass.json endpoint requires lat (-90 to 90) and lon (-180 to 180) query parameters — e.g., ?lat=40.7&lon=-74.0.
Stale or cached location data Your HTTP client or server is caching the response and not fetching fresh data.
✓ Add Cache-Control: no-cache to your request headers, or append a unique query string like ?t=Date.now() to bust the cache.

Matrix Score Breakdown

🌐 Reachability 30/30
⚡ Speed 15/20
🔒 Security 0/15
🛠 Developer XP 20/20
✓ Reliability 7/15
Response Time 238ms

Fully tested on Apr 5, 2026

Technical Specifications

Auth No Auth
HTTPS NO
CORS NO
Category Science & Math
Difficulty Beginner
Verified: 2026-04-04

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