NASA TechPort R&D Project Scraper

Extract structured records from NASA's TechPort technology project database — the official, regularly-updated catalog of research and development projects funded across all NASA mission directorates. This Actor pulls full project metadata (status, technology readiness level, lead center, funding program, taxonomy) so you can analyze the U.S. civil space technology pipeline at scale.

What this Actor does

• Queries the NASA TechPort REST API (api.nasa.gov/techport/api/projects).
• Pulls the full project ID list (20,000+ entries), then fetches detail records.
• Filters by status, program acronym (SBIR, STTR, GCD, STMD, …), start year, and lead NASA center.
• Returns clean tabular records ready for BI, RAG pipelines, or CRM enrichment.

Why scrape TechPort

NASA TechPort is the authoritative inventory of NASA-funded technology projects. It is maintained by NASA itself (not a third-party aggregator), refreshed continuously, and exposes data that drives:

• Aerospace business development — identify NASA-funded SBIR/STTR awardees and their technology focus
• Competitive intelligence — track which NASA centers and primes are funding which technology areas
• Investor due diligence — spot government-validated deep-tech companies before they become household names
• Academic / policy research — measure the U.S. R&D pipeline by Technology Readiness Level (TRL) cohort
• Procurement intelligence — surface project leads, partners, and technical contacts for outreach

Output fields

Field	Description
projectId	NASA TechPort project ID
title	Project title
acronym	Short project acronym
status	Active / Completed / Cancelled
startYear / endYear	Performance period
trlCurrent	Current Technology Readiness Level (1–9)
trlBegin / trlEnd	TRL at project start and target end
programName / programAcronym	Funding program (e.g. SBIR, STMD-GCD)
leadOrganization	Lead NASA center (Ames, Goddard, JPL, …)
primaryTechnologyCode	NASA Technology Taxonomy code (e.g. TX09.4.6)
primaryTechnology	Technology area title
destinationType	Mission destination(s) targeted
description	Project abstract (cleaned, HTML stripped)
benefits	Stated benefits / impact
viewCount	Public page-view counter
lastUpdated	TechPort record last-modified date
url	Public TechPort URL

How to scrape NASA TechPort

1. (Optional but recommended) Get a free api.nasa.gov key — 1,000 requests/hour. Without one, the Actor uses NASA's DEMO_KEY (30/hour, 50/day).
2. Open the Actor, paste your key into the NASA API Key field.
3. Add filters — e.g. programAcronym = "SBIR", startYearAfter = 2022, leadOrganizationFilter = "Jet Propulsion Laboratory".
4. Set Max Results (each result = 1 API call against your hourly quota).
5. Run. Results land in the dataset within seconds.

Pricing

This Actor is billed at $0.003 per project record. You also pay standard Apify compute for the run, which is minimal (single-process Node, no browser).

For a 1,000-project sweep:

• Apify per-result charge: $3.00
• NASA API: free (with your own key)
• Compute: typically < $0.10

Input example

{
  "apiKey": "YOUR_NASA_KEY",
  "programAcronym": "SBIR",
  "startYearAfter": 2023,
  "maxResults": 500
}

Output example

{
  "projectId": 158550,
  "title": "Venus InStrumentation for Thermophysics and Aerosciences",
  "acronym": "VISTA",
  "status": "Active",
  "startYear": 2024,
  "endYear": 2033,
  "trlCurrent": 4,
  "programAcronym": "GCD",
  "leadOrganization": "Ames Research Center",
  "primaryTechnologyCode": "TX09.4.6",
  "primaryTechnology": "Atmospheric Entry Probes",
  "url": "https://techport.nasa.gov/view/158550"
}

FAQ

Do I need a NASA API key? Not strictly — DEMO_KEY works but is heavily rate-limited. Grab a free key at https://api.nasa.gov/ in under a minute.

Is the data fresh? TechPort is updated by NASA program offices continuously. Records carry lastUpdated dates so you can verify freshness.

Can I get funding amounts? Detailed funding figures require NASA-internal authorization and are not exposed via the public API. Only project-level structural data is available.

Legal

This Actor pulls only data published by NASA on a public, no-authentication, government-operated API (api.nasa.gov). NASA data is U.S. government work and not subject to U.S. copyright. No personal data is collected. Respect the API's published rate limits.

Support: bciccarelli6@gmail.com