How SpaceNexus Built 50+ Automated Data Pipelines
Behind the scenes of SpaceNexus: how we aggregate data from NASA, NOAA, SpaceX, and dozens of other sources into a unified space intelligence platform.
SpaceNexus aggregates data from over 50 sources, refreshed by 30+ automated cron jobs running on schedules ranging from every 2 minutes to weekly. Here's how the data pipeline works.
Architecture
Our data layer has three tiers:
- High-frequency (2-15 min): News feeds, space weather, live events, realtime satellite data. These endpoints are latency-sensitive — a launch scrub at T-minus 10 minutes needs to appear in our feed within minutes
- Medium-frequency (30 min - 4 hr): SpaceX API data, EONET natural events, podcast feeds, blog sources, YouTube channels. These change regularly but aren't time-critical
- Daily/weekly: AI insights generation, SEC filings, patent monitoring, commodity prices, compliance data, newsletter digests. These are batch processes that run during off-peak hours
Reliability
A staleness watchdog runs every 10 minutes, checking that each critical data source has been refreshed within its expected window. If a source goes stale:
- The watchdog logs an alert to the database
- For critical sources (news, launches, space weather), it automatically triggers a retry
- After 10 consecutive failures, auto-recovery stops and admin is notified via email
- Grace periods prevent false positives during scheduler startup
Key Data Sources
- Launch Library 2: Global launch schedule — the most comprehensive public API for mission data
- NOAA SWPC: Space weather — solar flare alerts, Kp index, CME tracking
- CelesTrak: TLE data for 10,000+ tracked objects
- SpaceX API: Open-source launch and vehicle data
- USAspending.gov: Federal space spending and contract awards
- 12+ RSS feeds: NASA, ESA, CNN Space, Wired, and others
- Claude AI: Daily insight generation with two-pass fact-checking
See our complete data source inventory at SpaceNexus Data Sources.
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