ISS astronauts, current location, etc
Last verified: April 1, 2026
This API requires no authentication — you can start making requests immediately with no sign-up or API key needed.
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fetch() in JavaScript, curl in your terminal, or any HTTP client to call the API.No-auth APIs are the easiest to get started with — perfect for learning, prototyping, and building side projects.
This API does not support CORS, so you'll need to call it from a server-side application or use a proxy. Direct browser requests will be blocked by the browser's same-origin policy.
Open Notify is a free, no-authentication API in the Science & Math category. You can start using it immediately without creating an account or obtaining an API key — just send an HTTP request and receive data back. This API does not require HTTPS and does not support CORS — you will need to call it from a server-side application.
Open Notify fits naturally into projects that touch the Science & Math space. Here are a few directions developers commonly take when working with APIs in this category — any of them could be a fit depending on the specific endpoints Open Notify exposes:
If a specific use case isn't listed, scroll back to the code examples above and adapt the request shape to match the endpoint you need. Most Science & Math APIs follow similar request/response patterns, so the snippet that works for one endpoint usually works for the rest with small tweaks.
1. Skim the documentation first. Open the link above and look for two things: the base URL pattern and a list of available endpoints. Knowing both up front saves you from guessing parameter names or formats. Most providers also publish example responses next to each endpoint — copy one into your editor as a reference for the JSON shape your code will be parsing.
2. No authentication needed. Open Notify is one of the no-auth APIs in our directory, which means you can skip account creation entirely. Just point a request at the endpoint and you'll get data back. This makes it ideal for prototypes, learning exercises, and demos where you want to see something working in under a minute.
3. Make a request from the command line. Before wiring an API into your application, send a single request with curl or your HTTP client of choice. Confirm that the response shape matches what the docs promised. If it doesn't, your application code would have hit the same surprise — better to find out now while you only have one terminal window to debug.
4. Wire it into your code. Once a manual request works, copy that request into your application as a function. Add error handling: APIs return 4xx and 5xx codes for client and server errors respectively, and your code needs to behave reasonably when one comes back. Our error-handling guide covers the patterns that make this less painful.
5. Don't call it directly from the browser. Open Notify doesn't support CORS, so a browser-side fetch() will be blocked by the same-origin policy. Call it from your backend instead and forward the result to the frontend. If you don't have a backend, a serverless function (Cloudflare Workers, Netlify Functions, Vercel) is a quick way to add one.
Heads up: HTTPS. Open Notify is listed as not requiring HTTPS, which is unusual for modern APIs. If your application runs on an HTTPS-served page, browsers will block plaintext requests as mixed content. Either run your code from a non-HTTPS host (locally is fine) or look for an HTTPS variant of the same API in our directory.
Explore free Science & Math APIs available for developers. Browse our collection of public APIs in the Science & Math category, each verified and documented for easy integration into your projects.
Open Notify is one of dozens of free Science & Math APIs we've catalogued. Some are nearly interchangeable; others have distinct strengths and weaknesses that only become clear when you read their docs side-by-side. If Open Notify doesn't quite fit your project, the Science & Math category page lists every alternative we know about, with auth and CORS columns so you can compare at a glance.
When evaluating Science & Math APIs, the criteria that matter most are typically: rate limits on the free tier, freshness of the underlying data, regional coverage (does it work for your users' geography?), and how active the provider's maintenance schedule is. APIs that haven't been updated in years tend to drift out of sync with the underlying data sources, even if they technically still respond.
Open Notify is an API in the Science & Math category. The specific data it returns depends on its endpoints — this could include structured records, search results, media files, or computed values. Visit the official documentation for a complete list of endpoints and response schemas.
As a Science & Math API, Open Notify can be integrated into web apps, mobile apps, browser extensions, chatbots, data dashboards, or backend services. Common use cases include displaying live data on a website, automating data collection, building comparison tools, or enriching your own database with external information.
Yes — browse our Science & Math category to see all available APIs in the same space. Using multiple APIs can help with redundancy (if one goes down) and provide richer data by combining different sources.
Yes, Open Notify is listed as a free public API. It requires no sign-up or API key — you can start making requests immediately. Some APIs have rate limits on their free tier, so check the official documentation for current limits.
Yes! According to our most recent health check (Open Notify's last ping: 2026-04-01 13:42:56), this API is responding normally. We periodically verify all listed APIs to ensure they are still online and functioning.