🔬 NASA Reports Scraper

🚀 Collect technical reports from NASA's NTRS database in minutes. Filter by author, center, subject, document type, and date range. No coding, no API keys required.

🕒 Last updated: 2026-04-16 · 📊 15+ fields · 🏢 14 NASA centers · 📄 20+ document types

NASA's Technical Reports Server (NTRS) hosts hundreds of thousands of scientific papers, conference proceedings, technical memoranda, and research reports. This scraper connects directly to the NTRS API and returns structured data including titles, authors, abstracts, publication dates, download links, subject categories, and NASA center information. Whether you need 10 reports or 500,000, the scraper handles pagination, filtering, and data formatting automatically.

Researchers, engineers, and data analysts use this actor to build literature databases, track research output from specific NASA centers, monitor publications in their field, and compile bibliographies. Instead of manually browsing NTRS and downloading metadata one record at a time, you get clean, structured data exported as JSON, CSV, or Excel. Every record includes the full abstract, all author names, NASA center, document type, subject categories, keywords, and direct PDF download links.

🎯 Target Audience	💡 Use Cases
Aerospace researchers	Track publications in specific research areas
Graduate students	Build literature reviews for dissertations
Defense contractors	Monitor NASA research relevant to proposals
Science journalists	Find source material for space and aviation stories
University libraries	Catalog NASA reports in institutional repositories
Data analysts	Analyze publication trends across NASA centers

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📋 What the NASA Reports Scraper does

• 🔍 Keyword search across all NASA technical reports and publications
• 👤 Author filtering to find all publications by a specific researcher
• 🏢 Center filtering across 14 NASA centers including Ames, Goddard, and JPL
• 📄 Document type selection for technical memoranda, conference papers, videos, and more
• 📅 Date range filtering by publication date or date acquired
• 🏷️ Subject category filtering for focused research area collection

The scraper sends your query to NASA's NTRS API, retrieves matching records, and extracts full metadata for each report. Results include the complete abstract, author list, NASA center, subject categories, keywords, document type, distribution status, report numbers, funding numbers, and direct download links. Each record is timestamped so you know when it was collected.

💡 Why it matters: NTRS contains NASA's full body of published research, but browsing and exporting is slow and limited to small batches. This scraper automates collection and delivers structured data ready for analysis, citation databases, or research tracking.

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🎬 Full Demo

🚧 Coming soon...

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⚙️ Input

Field	Type	Required	Description
searchQuery	string	No	General search query (e.g., "mars rover", "aerodynamics")
maxItems	integer	No	Max reports to collect. Free: up to 10. Paid: up to 1,000,000
title	string	No	Filter by report title
author	string	No	Author name (e.g., "Smith, John")
organization	string	No	Organization affiliation
publicationDateFrom	string	No	Start date (YYYY-MM-DD)
publicationDateTo	string	No	End date (YYYY-MM-DD)
dateAcquiredFrom	string	No	Date added to database start (YYYY-MM-DD)
dateAcquiredTo	string	No	Date added to database end (YYYY-MM-DD)
documentType	string	No	Document type: Technical Memorandum, Conference Paper, etc.
center	string	No	NASA center: Ames, Goddard, JPL, Langley, etc.
subjectCategory	string	No	Research field (e.g., "Astrophysics", "Aerodynamics")
reportNumbers	string	No	Specific report number (e.g., "NASA-TM-2023-123456")
fundingNumbers	string	No	Grant number (e.g., "NNX07AD99G")
keywords	string	No	Comma-separated keywords
sort	string	No	Sort: Best Match, Date Descending, Date Ascending, Title

Example 1: Basic keyword search

{
  "searchQuery": "mars rover",
  "maxItems": 10,
  "sort": "Date Descending"
}

Example 2: Center-specific search with date range

{
  "author": "Smith, John",
  "center": "Jet Propulsion Laboratory",
  "publicationDateFrom": "2020-01-01",
  "publicationDateTo": "2024-12-31",
  "maxItems": 100
}

⚠️ Good to Know: Use search filters (not a Start URL) for best results. The NASA NTRS uses a POST API internally, so direct URL scraping has limited support. Combine multiple filters to narrow results to exactly what you need.

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📊 Output

🧾 Schema

Emoji	Field	Type	Description
📝	title	string	Report title
👥	authors	array	List of author names
📅	publicationDate	string	Publication date
📄	abstract	string	Full abstract text
🔗	downloadLinks	array	Direct PDF and full-text download URLs
🏢	center	string	NASA center that conducted the research
🏷️	subjectCategories	array	Research field classifications
🔑	keywords	array	Research keywords
📋	documentType	string	Type of document (paper, memo, etc.)
✅	distributionStatus	string	Public availability status
🆔	reportNumbers	array	Official report number identifiers
💰	fundingNumbers	array	Grant and funding identifiers
🏢	organization	string	Affiliated organization
🔗	url	string	Direct link to the NTRS record
⏰	scrapedAt	string	Collection timestamp
⚠️	error	string	Error message if processing failed

📦 Sample records

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✨ Why choose this Actor

Feature	Details
🔍 Full-text search	Search across titles, abstracts, and keywords
🏢 14 NASA centers	Filter by Ames, Goddard, JPL, Langley, Marshall, and more
📄 20+ document types	Technical memoranda, conference papers, videos, and more
📅 Date range filtering	By publication date or date acquired
📥 Download links	Direct PDF and full-text URLs
🏷️ Subject categories	Filter by research field for focused collection
📊 Sorting options	Best match, date, or title ordering

📊 Collect up to 1,000,000 NASA reports per run with full abstracts, download links, and metadata.

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📈 How it compares to alternatives

Feature	This Actor	Manual NTRS Browsing	Generic Scrapers
Full abstract extraction	✅	✅	❌
PDF download links	✅	Manual	❌
14 center filters	✅	✅	❌
Bulk collection (100K+ reports)	✅	❌	❌
Structured JSON/CSV output	✅	❌	Varies
Scheduled recurring runs	✅	❌	❌
Date range filtering	✅	✅	❌

Skip manual browsing and get all the NASA research data you need in one automated run.

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🚀 How to use

1. Create an Apify account - Sign up free with $5 credit
2. Open the NASA Reports Scraper - Navigate to the actor page on Apify
3. Enter your search criteria - Type a keyword, author name, or select filters
4. Configure filters - Set center, document type, date range, and sort order
5. Click Start - The actor collects matching reports and delivers structured data

⏱️ A typical run with 10 reports completes in under 1 minute.

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💼 Business use cases

🎓 Academic Research Build literature reviews for dissertations and theses Track research output from specific NASA programs Compile bibliographies for grant proposals Analyze publication trends in aerospace research	🏭 Aerospace Industry Monitor NASA research relevant to contract proposals Track technology readiness across programs Identify collaboration opportunities with NASA centers Build knowledge bases from technical memoranda
📰 Science Communication Find source material for space and aviation articles Track new publications from specific missions Build datasets for data visualization projects Monitor research announcements from NASA centers	📚 Library Services Catalog NASA reports in institutional repositories Build subject-specific collections for departments Track new acquisitions in the NTRS database Cross-reference NASA reports with journal publications

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🔌 Automating NASA Reports Scraper

Integrate the NASA Reports Scraper into your workflow using the Apify API or client libraries.

Node.js:

import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

const client = new ApifyClient({ token: 'YOUR_API_TOKEN' });
const run = await client.actor("parseforge/nasa-reports-scraper").call({
  searchQuery: "mars rover",
  center: "Jet Propulsion Laboratory",
  maxItems: 50
});
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
console.log(items);

Python:

from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient("YOUR_API_TOKEN")
run = client.actor("parseforge/nasa-reports-scraper").call(run_input={
    "searchQuery": "mars rover",
    "center": "Jet Propulsion Laboratory",
    "maxItems": 50
})
items = list(client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items())
print(items)

• 📖 Apify API reference
• 🐍 Python client docs
• 📦 Node.js client docs

Schedules: Set up recurring runs to monitor new publications from specific NASA centers or research areas. Configure weekly or monthly schedules from the Apify Console to build a growing research database automatically.

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❓ Frequently Asked Questions

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🔌 Integrate with any app

• 🔗 Make (Integromat) - Connect NASA data to Google Sheets, Notion, or any of 1,500+ apps
• 🔗 Zapier - Trigger workflows when new NASA reports are collected
• 🔗 Slack - Get notified when a NASA data run completes
• 🔗 Airbyte - Stream NASA report data into your data warehouse
• 🔗 GitHub - Store NASA datasets in repositories for version control
• 🔗 Google Drive - Automatically save CSV exports to shared folders

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💡 Pro Tip: Combine the NASA Reports Scraper with the Crossref Scraper to match NASA publications with their DOI records and track citation impact.

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🆘 Need Help? Open our contact form and we will get back to you within 24 hours. We are happy to help with custom setups, integrations, or feature requests.

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Disclaimer: This actor is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to NASA or the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. It accesses publicly available data through NASA's Technical Reports Server. Use responsibly and in accordance with applicable terms of service.