Orbits API¶

The Orbits API returns orbital elements and related parameters for solar system objects in the mpc_orb JSON format.

Endpoint¶

https://data.minorplanetcenter.net/api/get-orb

Method: GET

Parameters¶

Parameter	Type	Required	Description	Default
`desig`	String	Yes	Name, permanent or provisional designation	NA

Note

You may use any designation format supported by the Designation Identifier API. Currently, the Orbits API is limited to single object queries.

Response Format¶

At a high level, the Orbits API returns a list containing:

List Item	Type	Description
Orbit	Dictionary	Dictionary containing an `mpc_orb` object.
Status Code	Integer	200

Examples¶

Python¶

import requests

response = requests.get(
    "https://data.minorplanetcenter.net/api/get-orb",
    json={"desig": "123456"}
)
response.raise_for_status()
mpc_orb = response.json()[0]['mpc_orb'][0]

Output mpc_orb Dictionary

{
    'CAR': {
        'coefficient_names': ['x', 'y', 'z', 'vx', 'vy', 'vz'],
        'coefficient_uncertainties': [4.1878e-08, 6.33631e-08, ...],
        'coefficient_values': [2.22157355733413, -0.248953026079381, ...],
        'covariance': {'cov00': 1.753769379695109e-15, ...},
        'eigenvalues': [5.13405e-12, 1.08044e-10, ...],
        ...
    },
    ...
}

cURL¶

curl -X GET -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"desig": "13270"}' \
  https://data.minorplanetcenter.net/api/get-orb

Working with the `mpc_orb` Format¶

The MPC maintains a public GitHub repository with a pip-installable package for reading, validating, and writing MPC_ORB JSON files:

pip install mpc-orb