NASA Earthdata

earthdata.nasa.gov · Debrid, Storage · 2 records · JSON

NASA Earthdata (Earthdata Login + CMR Search) Debridcaveatemailno cardDrequest-rate
NASA Earthdata AWS allocation (2 PB pool via Space Act Agreement) Storagefails: identityinstitutionno cardR

NASA Earthdata (Earthdata Login + CMR Search) Debrid

caveatemailno cardDrequest-rate

www.earthdata.nasa.gov/data/earthdata-login · Earth science data archive (login-gated DAAC downloads, open search API) · debrid/nasa-earthdata · JSON · compare

Free tier	Data are free but gated: 'You will need to use Earthdata Login anytime you want to download Earth science data from any of the DAACs. Access to DAAC and other EOSDIS web information (e.g. about data, missions, instruments) does not require a login.' The CMR search API answers anonymously. unit unlimited; metered on none; Registration is at urs.earthdata.nasa.gov; no fee is mentioned.
Price	USD 0
Per-object cap	not applicable: a granule is the object and its size is collection-specific. The search response measured here was 4,238 bytes.
Retention	per collection; DAACs publish their own retention, and CMR itself is a catalogue that reflects current holdings
Egress	Free. The login is identity and metrics, not payment: the registration page describes it as a user registration and profile system. free_allowance: no byte allowance published
Identity	email Earthdata Login registration (free, at urs.earthdata.nasa.gov) is mandatory for any DAAC download; the catalogue search needs nothing.
Limits	request-rate CMR deploys throttling rules that return 429 with a retry-after header; a hard 180-second limit applies to any request, and paging stops at the 1,000,000th item source The CMR page names the throttle mechanism and the 180 s ceiling but publishes no numeric rate. The download path itself was not exercised because no EDL account exists here.
Binding	request-rate For a caller holding an account, CMR's throttling and the 180-second request ceiling bound a catalogue walk. For a caller without one, the EDL gate fails first - recorded in identity_cost, because the seven-kind vocabulary has no identity kind.
Interface	rest, cli CMR search at https://cmr.earthdata.nasa.gov/search/ (JSON), granule download from the DAAC with an EDL bearer token or a .netrc entry; earthaccess and the EDL client wrap the token flow. endpoint: https://cmr.earthdata.nasa.gov/search/
Tooling	earthaccess (python) handles login and download; curl needs the Authorization: Bearer header; the CMR API also takes a token query parameter but marks it for deprecation.
Composes with	The climate and remote-sensing counterpart to Copernicus: two login-gated archives that between them cover reanalysis and satellite products, both needing the same kind of free account.
Reliability	CMR paging cannot pass the millionth item and granule queries without a collection stop at 10,000; a whole-archive crawl has to be sliced by collection or by time.
Notes	Caveat is identity: the bytes are free and the account is mandatory. This is the pattern is meant to separate from the anonymous sources - NASA is not a no-account source, even though nothing is charged.
Evidence rung	documented The search API was exercised anonymously and the login requirement is the vendor's own sentence; no granule was downloaded, so the download path is documented and not measured.
Checked	2026-10-24 (live); stale on 2026-11-23
Parsed numbers	`$.price_per_tb_month` price-per-tb USD0.0 TB / month

Evidence (3)

date	source	what it proved
2026-10-23	www.earthdata.nasa.gov/data/earthdata-login	Earthdata Login is the registration system for DAAC data; 'registration is quick and easy' at urs.earthdata.nasa.gov
2026-10-23	cmr.earthdata.nasa.gov/search/site/docs/search/api.html	429 with retry-after throttling rules, the 180-second hard request limit, and the 1,000,000-item paging ceiling
2026-10-23	probe:https://cmr.earthdata.nasa.gov/search/collections.json?page_size=1	200, 4,238 bytes of JSON to an anonymous client - the catalogue is open even though the granules are not

More fields (4)

{
 "login_required_for": "any DAAC download",
 "cmr_anonymous": true,
 "cmr_hard_timeout_s": 180,
 "cmr_paging_ceiling": 1000000
}

NASA Earthdata AWS allocation (2 PB pool via Space Act Agreement) Storage

fails: identityinstitutionno cardR

www.earthdata.nasa.gov/engage/partnerships/aws-storage-cloud · academic · storage/nasa-earthdata-aws-allocation · JSON · compare

Free tier	A 2 PB storage allocation held by NASA's Earth Science Division inside the AWS Open Data Program, subdivided by request. Individual allocations are not published; requests are reviewed monthly (1st) with responses by the 7th. unit mixed; metered on stored-bytes
Price	none stated
Per-object cap	not stated
Retention	\| Requirements are explicitly internal: data must be 'write once, read many', a large meaningful NASA science collection, listed on the Registry of Open Data, and 'not stored for long-term operational use'
Egress	Free public read through the AWS Open Data registry entry.
Identity	institution institution
Limits	write-gated reviewed monthly (1st) with responses by the 7th source write-gated review is NASA's ESD source Requirements are explicitly internal: data must be 'write once, read many', a large meaningful NASA science collection, listed on the Registry of Open Data, and 'not stored for long-term operational use'. A Google Form is the entry point, but the review is NASA's ESD.
Binding	none the quota is real and unreachable: identity is the binding constraint, and it is not one of the six limits kinds
Interface	s3 s3
Tooling	S3 bucket handed over by the platform point of contact after approval; Registry YAML PR required to publish.
Composes with	Not multiplicable by an outsider: this is an internal reallocation of NASA's own 2 PB, gated on being NASA-affiliated NASA science.
Reliability	Same S3 reliability as AWS ODS. Not reachable without a NASA affiliation.
Notes	A 2 PB storage allocation held by NASA's Earth Science Division inside the AWS Open Data Program, subdivided by request. Individual allocations are not published; requests are reviewed monthly (1st) with responses by the 7th.
Evidence rung	reported One page read moves it to documented.
Checked	2026-10-21 (inherited); stale on 2026-11-04

Evidence (2)

date	source	what it proved
2026-10-21	www.earthdata.nasa.gov/engage/partnerships/aws-storage-cloud	'NASA's Earth Science Division (ESD) has been given an allocation of 2 PB within the AWS Open Data Program'
2026-10-21	withheld	same - 'Data should be considered write once, read many'; 'Requests will be reviewed on the 1st of each month and responses provided by the 7th'

More fields (1)

{
 "dead_end": {
  "failure_class": "write-gated",
  "why": "A 2 PB storage allocation held by NASA's Earth Science Division inside the AWS Open Data Program, subdivided by request. Individual allocations are not published; requests are reviewed monthly (1st) with responses by the 7th.",
  "retry_when": null,
  "first_recorded": "2026-10-21"
 }
}

Unknown or withheld values (6)

$.evidence[1].url private-url
$.extras.dead_end.retry_when process
$.free_tier.notes process
$.per_object_cap.notes not-extracted
$.per_object_cap.stated not-extracted
$.retention.notes not-extracted