NASA Earthdata Authentication

March 19, 2026 ยท View on GitHub

To access NASA Earthdata resources, you need to authenticate with NASA's Earthdata Login system. The tools in this server handle authentication automatically, but you'll need to provide environment variables with your Earthdata credentials.

Getting a NASA Earthdata Account

  1. Create an Account: Visit https://urs.earthdata.nasa.gov/ and click "Register"
  2. Fill out the registration form with your information
  3. Verify your email address by clicking the link in the confirmation email
  4. Log in to your account at https://urs.earthdata.nasa.gov/

Authentication Methods

The earthaccess library is used to download data from NASA Earthdata. You need to provide your Earthdata Login credentials: EARTHDATA_USERNAME and EARTHDATA_PASSWORD via environment variables.

For detailed behavior of download_earth_data_granules (including manifest, download, and script modes) and composition with mcp-compose + jupyter-mcp-server, see download workflow.