Introduction to the Course

Get introduced to NASA APIs, the course content, and its prerequisites.

We'll cover the following

Humankind has always been fascinated by space since the dawn of civilization. We utilized telescopes for space exploration even when we didn’t have the technology to reach beyond Earth’s atmosphere. Then came a time when humans broke through Earth’s limits and ventured into space to explore it. This successful space exploration attempt resulted in a boom in space exploration ventures. After that, many space exploration organizations, such as the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), were created. Thanks to these space exploration organizations, we now have more knowledge than we ever had about space.

What are NASA APIs?

NASA APIs are simple, RESTful APIs that we can use to access the data in the public archives of NASA. We can use these APIs to get images captured by different space rovers, learn about other space bodies, find and track asteroids, and much more. Developers can use this data to create value-added applications consuming this data programmatically.

This is how we’ll progress in this course:

  • We’ll start by creating an account on the NASA APIs website to get our API key. We’ll use this key with each request for authentication purposes.
  • After getting our key, we’ll explore the APIs that give us information about Earth and Mars.
  • Then, we’ll learn about the APIs that provide access to images and videos from NASA’s public archive.
  • In the end, we’ll look at a Django application in which some of these endpoints have been integrated to demonstrate how we can use these APIs in an actual application.

To get the most out of this course, you should be familiar with:

  • The concept of APIs.
  • The use of HTTP requests.
  • The basics of the Python language.