Space exploration has always been a primary goal for humanity, pushing the boundaries of our understanding and our origins. Data has played a crucial role in this endeavour, evolving alongside technological advancements like the internet over the last century. This evolution has enhanced our ability to gather, analyse, and interpret extensive data, ultimately improving our understanding of the cosmos and guiding our exploration and navigation of space. 

Astronomers have captured data throughout the ages. Star maps, thought to have been created as far back as 1500 BC, although primitive by today’s standards, still represent early data collection efforts. The birth and ongoing evolution of computing have paralleled space exploration and monitoring, with both fields influencing each other and being heavily driven by data. 

The early years of space data can be traced from the late 1950s with the launch of early satellites, through the 1960s with the Apollo space missions, and into the 1980s with the launch of the Hubble Telescope. From the 1990s to the 2000s, there was a significant boom in information due to the many space telescopes in use, the advent of the internet, and the continuous advancement of computing power. This growth in data continues today and will persist into the future. 

Publicly funded space organizations often have policies requiring that data be made available to the public. This data is generally pre-processed and calibrated, allowing interested third parties to understand and utilize it without needing to delve into the complete technical hardware guides and software protocols of the spacecraft and instruments used. This accessibility brings a wealth of possibilities for data analytics and data science. 

Bringing this all down to earth, NASA's Open Data Portal (https://data.nasa.gov/) offers numerous publicly available files, documents, and, most importantly, datasets. This resource enables a wide range of applications and discoveries by making valuable space data accessible to the public. 

One such dataset covers 'Sentry: Earth Impact Monitoring' (https://cneos.jpl.nasa.gov/sentry/). 

Driven by the Center for Near Earth Object Studies (cneos), the dataset pulls together details of known NEA’s (Near Earth Asteroids). 

The dataset is regularly updated and summarised data can be accessed and rendered directly through the following website (https://cneos.jpl.nasa.gov/sentry/) 

NEA summary through Website

However, the ability to access both summarized data and more detailed, lower-level data can also be achieved through a publicly accessible API. 

Through the API, it’s possible to quickly retrieve summarized data similar to what is displayed on the website. Additionally, it allows for further calls to be made on specific NEA objects.. 

Calling https://ssd-api.jpl.nasa.gov/sentry.api?des=1979%20XB will retrieve information on object “1979 XB”, resulting in the following json response: 

NEA detail response 

The response is split into different sections, the summary contains details of the object along with the last impact calculation date.  The data section contains multiple entries defining potential impact dates and details. 

Basic data pipeline

If we wanted to build up a history going forward, the highlighted API calls could be used to drive a data pipeline. Data could be stored incrementally or in full within a data lake, making it available for future downstream analysis. 

This article has highlighted the wealth of information and data publicly available through space agencies, as well as the potential for capturing and utilising this data.