HORIZON-JPL 0.1.8

This Python API, is an effort towards opening NASA's PDS data sets to the public with a focus on ease of access. Thus creating, NASA's JPL Horizons On-Line Ephemeris System API

This method is outdated until I can recover my account to update the package Download the package from: https://pypi.python.org/pypi/HorizonJPL or from pip: pip install horizonjpl

Clone the repository to try it out for now

Please note, this API is currently in development and things are subject to change in future versions.

Demo

To run the demo you just have to do the following steps in a terminal:

1. cd into demo directory
2. pip install -r requirements.txt to install dependancies
3. python demo.py to start the server
4. Now you can navigate to http://127.0.0.1:5000 to see the demo

Future Plans

Things yet to be implemented from HORIZON system:

• Ephemeris and Trajectory calculations
• Small Body advanced search
• Convenience API calls

Creating a robust fault tolerant API is the number one goal. Included in this goal is various subgoals:

• Easy to access/read documentation
• Ultra fast response parsing
• Utilize cache wherever makes the most sense without affecting the integridy of the data
• Simple RESTful API

Background

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ephemeris:

For scientific uses, a modern planetary ephemeris comprises software that generates positions of planets and often of
their satellites, asteroids, or comets, at virtually any time desired by the user.

External Documentation & Resources

• Explorer Demo - http://nasa.apphb.com
• Planetary Data System: http://pds.nasa.gov/
• Jet Propulsion Labs: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/
• HORIZON User Manual: http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/?horizons_doc

Contributors

Matthew Mihok (@mattmattmatt)
Dexter Jagula (@djagula)
Siddarth Kalra (@SiddarthKalra)
Tiago Moreira (@Kamots)