Open Notify
Where is the ISS right now? A beloved API in decline.
Open Notify reports the live position of the International Space Station and who is in space. A classroom classic for a decade — but it is a single volunteer-run box, HTTP-only, and our checks show error rates climbing for weeks. Status: DYING. We list honest replacements below; consider wheretheiss.at.
GET http://api.open-notify.org/iss-now.json
{
"message": "success",
"iss_position": {
"latitude": "-12.4021",
"longitude": "43.5591"
},
"timestamp": 1751595300
}curl "http://api.open-notify.org/iss-now.json"const res = await fetch("http://api.open-notify.org/iss-now.json");
const data = await res.json();
console.log(data);import requests
res = requests.get("http://api.open-notify.org/iss-now.json")
print(res.json())BROWSER CALLS BLOCKED (NO CORS/HTTPS) — USE THE CURL SNIPPET
/iss-now.jsonPROBEDWhere is the ISS right now? A beloved API in decline.
/iss-now.json?limit=5Paginated variant with limit parameter.
We probe a documented GET and expect 2xx JSON — full uptime and health score. Export includes every documented route below.
Stable. No schema drift observed since monitoring began — the response shape has not changed under our checks.
Open Notify: common questions
Is Open Notify free to use?
Yes — Open Notify is a free science & space API. Free tier: Unlimited (volunteer-run). Whether the free tier allows commercial use is unclear — check the provider docs.
Does Open Notify need an API key?
No — Open Notify needs no API key or signup. You can call it straight away; rate limits still apply (Please be gentle).
Can I call Open Notify from the browser?
Not directly — Open Notify doesn't send browser-friendly CORS headers, so call it from a server or proxy instead. Copy the curl or Python snippet on this page to get started.
Is Open Notify up right now?
As of our last scheduled check, Open Notify is dying. We re-probe it every sweep — the status badge and uptime chart above always show the latest.