MCP Server Setup

The NASA MCP server exposes NASA APIs as tools for AI assistants over the Model Context Protocol (stdio JSON-RPC 2.0).

Installation

go install github.com/peteretelej/nasa/cmd/nasa-mcp@latest

Tip: GUI clients (Claude Desktop, Cursor, VS Code) often don’t inherit your shell’s $PATH. If the MCP server isn’t found, use the full path to the binary: $(go env GOPATH)/bin/nasa-mcp. You can find the absolute path by running which nasa-mcp or go env GOPATH in your terminal.

Configuration

Set your NASA API key in the env block. Without it, the server falls back to DEMO_KEY (30 requests/hour).

Claude Desktop

Add to claude_desktop_config.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "nasa": {
      "command": "nasa-mcp",
      "env": {
        "NASA_API_KEY": "your-key"
      }
    }
  }
}

If nasa-mcp is not found, replace "command": "nasa-mcp" with the absolute path (e.g., "/home/you/go/bin/nasa-mcp").

Claude Code

claude mcp add nasa nasa-mcp -e NASA_API_KEY=your-key

If nasa-mcp is not in your $PATH, use the full path: claude mcp add nasa "$(go env GOPATH)/bin/nasa-mcp" -e NASA_API_KEY=your-key.

VS Code (GitHub Copilot)

Add to .vscode/settings.json:

{
  "github.copilot.chat.mcpServers": {
    "nasa": {
      "command": "nasa-mcp",
      "env": {
        "NASA_API_KEY": "your-key"
      }
    }
  }
}

If nasa-mcp is not found, replace "command": "nasa-mcp" with the absolute path.

Cursor

Add to .cursor/mcp.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "nasa": {
      "command": "nasa-mcp",
      "env": {
        "NASA_API_KEY": "your-key"
      }
    }
  }
}

If nasa-mcp is not found, replace "command": "nasa-mcp" with the absolute path.

How It Works

The MCP server communicates over stdin/stdout using JSON-RPC 2.0. Each line of stdin is a JSON-RPC request; responses are written to stdout. Diagnostic messages go to stderr.

The server exposes 13 tools covering APOD, NEO, DONKI, Images, SSD, and EONET. See Tools for the full list.