Privacy¶
astrodynamics-mcp runs entirely on your own machine (or your own
infrastructure). The project itself collects nothing: there is no
telemetry, no analytics, no usage reporting, and no account system. This
page describes the only data that leaves your machine — the requests the
tools make to the external data sources they wrap — so you can decide
what you are comfortable enabling.
What leaves your machine¶
Tools send the query parameters you provide to the relevant data source over HTTPS, only when a tool that needs that source is invoked. Nothing is sent in the background and nothing is sent at install time.
| Data source | When | What is sent | Authentication |
|---|---|---|---|
| CelesTrak | tle_lookup (default) |
NORAD ID, satellite name, or group keyword | None |
| JPL Horizons | porkchop, bplane_target |
Body names, epochs, time windows | None |
| IERS | time_convert, frame_transform (UT1/EOP) |
None beyond the bulletin fetch | None |
| Space-Track | tle_lookup with source="space-track" |
NORAD ID or object-name query | Your Space-Track username + password |
| ESA DISCOSweb | satellite_metadata |
NORAD ID | Your DISCOSweb bearer token |
The no-auth sources (CelesTrak, JPL Horizons, IERS) are used by the base
install. The credentialed sources (Space-Track, ESA DISCOSweb) are used
only if you configure their credentials — otherwise the relevant
tools return a typed CredentialRequiredError and make no network call.
Credentials¶
Credentials are read from local environment variables (stdio transport)
or from the session-init _meta block (HTTP transport). They are sent
only to their own service, over HTTPS, to authenticate your own requests.
The project does not log them, does not transmit them anywhere else, and
does not persist them beyond the lifetime of the process that holds them.
GMAT tools¶
The optional GMAT tools (gmat_run_mission, gmat_sweep,
gmat_execute_script, gmat_validate_script, gmat_read_run_artefact)
run a local GMAT install in a subprocess. Your script content and its
outputs stay on your machine; the project makes no external call on their
behalf beyond whatever the mission you supply configures itself.
Caching¶
Responses from the data sources are cached locally under an
XDG-compliant cache directory (~/.cache/astrodynamics-mcp/ on Linux, the
platform equivalent elsewhere) with per-source TTLs. The cache is
process-local and per-machine; there is no cloud sync. Setting
ASTRODYNAMICS_MCP_CACHE_DIR="" disables on-disk caching.
Upstream service policies¶
Requests to the external services are subject to each service's own terms and privacy practices:
- CelesTrak — https://celestrak.org/
- JPL Horizons — https://ssd-api.jpl.nasa.gov/
- IERS — https://www.iers.org/
- Space-Track — https://www.space-track.org/documentation#/user_agree
- ESA DISCOSweb — https://discosweb.esoc.esa.int/
Questions¶
Open an issue at https://github.com/astro-tools/astrodynamics-mcp/issues.