Last week I mentioned the NASA International Space Apps Challenge and how a few of the resulting projects got my attention. The project at the top of the list was Sol; not because I loved the app, but because it used an open source API ({MAAS}) to gather Mars weather data.
I wasn’t really sure what I’d use {MAAS} for, but I felt it was something I could easily get into. With it in hand, accessing Mars weather data was extremely simple, but actually using the data would take a little coding.
I’m a technical problem solver by trade and am fairly tool agnostic although I’ve been writing a fair amount of PHP lately. I’ve been looking to add some PHP code to my portfolio and thought that this would be a great chance to do so – giving birth to the MaasApi PHP class.
The MaasApi class will allow you to view the latest Mars weather info and archived data. You can search through the archived data using date ranges, sol dates, specific temperatures etc. It returns everything in an easily manageable array, although you can use it to get the original JSON object as well. See a basic example of what can be accomplished at http://www.danielbough.com/maas.
You can freely use, modify and distribute the code using the GPLv3+ license. Grab it via Github where you can also request features and report bugs.
Read more about the {MAAS} API, and other info about Mars weather, by visiting the below links:
- {MAAS}: http://marsweather.ingenology.com/
- Curiosity Rover: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curiosity_(rover)
- REMS: http://msl-scicorner.jpl.nasa.gov/Instruments/REMS/
- Mars Weather: http://marsweather.com/
