- About
- Free and paid access
- Data
- What data is available?
- Where does LL2 get its data from?
- How often is the data updated?
- How are webcasts (
vid_urls) selected and sorted? - How to exclude TSD videos from the webcast list?
- What is a Launch Service Provider (LSP)?
- What date/time format is used in LL2?
- What country code format is used in LL2?
- What are the different launch statuses used in LL2?
- Which suborbital launches are allowed in LL2?
- Why do launches remain
In Flightafter deployment? - How is the data linked to other APIs?
- API
- How to filter the API response?
- How to apply multiple filters?
- How to apply filters with multiple values?
- How to get more results in a single request?
- How to paginate through the data?
- How to access all the data and related objects?
- How to sort the API response?
- Why do past items appear in the
upcomingendpoints?
- Help & Contact
Launch Library 2 is a REST API providing space launch data including but not limited to :
- All orbital and some suborbital launches, with related data such as webcasts, launch service providers, etc.
- Spaceflight events
- Space stations with related data such as dockings, expeditions
- Astronauts and their flights
- Launch vehicles, reusable first stages and spacecraft
- Programs : Apollo, Tiangong, Starship, etc. and their related data
The retirement of the original Launch Library API was decided in December 2019 after the person paying for its expensive servers decided to leave the project. The remaining active librarians of the original Launch Library API teamed up with the staff of the Space Launch Now API to merge both efforts into an official successor : Launch Library 2. This new API would be managed by a new entity, separate of the user projects, called The Space Devs.
The creation of The Space Devs was officially announced with the release of LL2 in July 2020, while the original Launch Library API stopped being updated in autumn 2020 and was discontinued in early 2021.
LL2 is still maintained and improved regularly. However, most of the upgrades are related to the admin panel or performance improvements, requiring no version bump. New features or data can also be added without bumping the LL2 version if they are fully compatible.
When a new version is released, the announcement will be made on the TSD Discord server and Twitter first.
There is no plan for a major version update of the Launch Library API at the moment. However, it is still under development and updated regularly. If there ever is, news will be announced on the TSD Discord server and Twitter first.
All the data in Launch Library 2 is free to access with up to 15 API calls per hour (per IP). An API key is needed for higher access rates (per key).
The lldev prefix (instead of ll) in LL2 calls can be used to reach the development API. It is the same API , but
with no rate limits and a limited, stale data set. This should be used during development and testing, but
never in production.
The 15 calls per hour limit should be enough for most uses. If you feel like you need more (for a mobile app for example), then consider setting up a cache updated within the 15 calls per hour limit that serves data to your clients instead.
Additionally, it is recommended if real-time data is needed, to perform fewer API calls per hour overall and more around the time of the launch. Such optimizations of the API calls distribution can reduce the need for a paid API key.
If these measures are not enough, then an API key is needed to get higher access rates.
To get an API key, first choose the tier that satisfies your needs on our Patreon. Then head over to our website and login with your Patreon account to generate your key.
To use your API key, add the following header in your request :
- key:
"Authorization" - value:
"Token <token>", where<token>is your API key (without the<>).
You can check that your API key is working by performing a request to the
/api-throttle endpoint and checking the ident field in the
response: if it displays your IP, then your API key is not properly set up in your request.
Note that queries to this endpoint do not count towards your API calls limit.
To change your API key, head over to our website, login with your Patreon account, and follow the instructions.
To check your API calls usage and rate limits, perform a request to the
/api-throttle endpoint. This will return your current rate limit,
the frequency of that limit (e.g. 3600 for 1 hour), the number of calls you have made within that period, and the time
in seconds until you can make calls again if you are being rate-limited.
Note that queries to this endpoint do not count towards your API calls limit.
A list of the main data elements available through LL2 is available on its web page. The full list of endpoints is available in the documentation.
The day-to-day data in LL2 is added and maintained using public sources of three different types : 1st-party, 2nd-party and community. The 1st party data comes directly from space agencies, launch service providers, satellite operators, etc. and is usually considered the most reliable. The 2nd party data comes from space journalists and news outlets which have proven reliable over the years. The community data comes from the forums or user reports and is not necessarily reliable.
The historic data in LL2 is sourced from Jonathan McDowell's GCAT, Gunter's Space Page, spacefacts.de, as well as other public databases.
The data in LL2 is updated as often as needed, which means multiple times within an hour during launches or events, and usually a few times per day as new information is available.
When available, only official webcasts are provided in LL2. If there are multiple options, the english-speaking hosted webcasts with the highest quality are prioritized.
The priority value is an increasing number from the main webcasts to the secondary ones. This is done to easily sort the available webcasts from the most important to the least.
After launches, some vid_urls with the lowest priority value are launch summary videos provided through the TSD YouTube
channel. These are simple edits to cut out the countdown sequence and holds.
To exclude this, it is possible to use the YouTube API to filter out the videos from the TSD YouTube channel.
A Launch Service Provider (LSP) is a space agency or company that operates a launch (in the economics sense). It is not always the operator of the rocket, but is the entity responsible for the launch as seen from customers.
All the datetime fields in LL2 follow the ISO 8601 format, for example
2022-08-18T09:17:04Z. All times are UTC, as indicated by the Z at the end of the datetime string.
LL2 country codes use comma-separated ISO 3166-1 alpha-3 codes.
The list of launch statuses, along with their ID, description, etc. is available on the launchstatus config endpoint.
All orbital launch attempts are included in LL2, however the suborbital launches considered must be livestreamed and meet at least one of the following criteria:
- Target an apogee of at least 100 km
- Carry crew higher than 80 km
- Draw significant public interest
It is possible to suggest suborbital launches to be added to LL2 by asking librarians in the
💬feedback-and-help forum of the TSD
Discord server.
To remove suborbital launches from LL2 queries, it is possible to use the include_suborbital=false filter.
Launches where a liftoff was confirmed remain In Flight until a confirmation of acquisition of signal of the main
payload is received. If not available (rideshare with many payloads, classified payloads, etc.), the launch is
considered
successful when the launch service provider counts it as such, usually after deployment.
LL2 launch and event IDs are used in the following APIs:
- Spaceflight News API: to link related news articles
- Flight Club: to link launch trajectory and telemetry data
- Launch Dashboard API: to link launch telemetry data
- SpaceX API: to link SpaceX-specific launch data
Filters can be applied to an API query by adding ?<filter>=<value> to the end of the query.
For example: https://ll.thespacedevs.com/2.3.0/launches/upcoming/?lsp__name=SpaceX
Multiple filters can be applied by separating them with &.
For example: https://ll.thespacedevs.com/2.3.0/launches/upcoming/?lsp__name=SpaceX&is_crewed=true
Only a handful of filters can be applied with multiple values, such as spacecraft_config__ids, location__ids,
lsp__id. For these, multiple values can be applied by separating them with ,.
It is possible to increase the number of results per request up to 100 by using the limit=<number> filter.
While it can help minimize the number of overall API calls, keep in mind that increasing the number of results per request will result in longer API response times.
The API supports pagination through the offset=<number> filter. This filter is automatically applied to the request
URL and provided in the next field of the response.
Therefore, regardless of the number of results per request, easy pagination can be done by performing API requests with
the URL in the next field until it is empty.
To access all the data and related objects (webcast URLs on the launch endpoint for example), use the
mode=detailed filter.
The API response can be sorted by any of the available fields using ordering=<field>. To switch from ascending to
descending order, add - to the beginning of the field name: ordering=-<field>.
Launches and events remain in the upcoming endpoint for 24 hours to allow services to update them with their final
information (launch outcome, mainly) without needing an additional call to the previous endpoint.
This behavior can be disabled using the hide_recent_previous=true filter.
The status of LL2 can be checked here. If you notice any issue, please
let the staff know in the
💬feedback-and-help forum of the TSD
Discord server.
If you need any help with LL2, you can ask in the
💬feedback-and-help forum of the TSD
Discord server or email support@thespacedevs.com.
If you found a bug or data mistake, let the staff know in the
💬feedback-and-help forum of the TSD
Discord server, or email support@thespacedevs.com.
There are two main ways to contact the LL2 staff:
- On the Discord server.
- By email to support@thespacedevs.com.