California Institute of Technology

---
aid: caltech
name: California Institute of Technology
description: >-
  The California Institute of Technology (Caltech) is a private research
  university in Pasadena, California, ranked #10 in the QS World University
  Rankings 2025. Caltech's public, machine-readable footprint is concentrated
  in its research-data and astronomy infrastructure rather than a single
  central developer portal. CaltechDATA, the institutional research data
  repository, runs on InvenioRDM and exposes a public REST API and an OAI-PMH
  interface, with an accompanying open-source Python client. Caltech-operated
  IPAC runs the NASA/IPAC Infrared Science Archive (IRSA), which publishes
  Virtual Observatory (IVOA) standard APIs including TAP, Simple Cone Search,
  and Simple Image Access. There is no single unified institution-wide API
  developer portal; the official GitHub "caltech" org is an unofficial
  community group, while caltechlibrary and Caltech-IPAC host the bulk of the
  open-source code.
type: Index
position: Consumer
access: 3rd-Party
image: https://kinlane-productions.s3.amazonaws.com/apis-json/apis-json-logo.jpg
url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/caltech/refs/heads/main/apis.yml
tags:
  - Education
  - Higher Education
  - University
  - Research Data
  - Astronomy
  - Open Data
  - United States
created: '2026-06-03'
modified: '2026-06-03'
specificationVersion: '0.19'
apis:
  - aid: caltech:caltechdata-rest
    name: CaltechDATA REST API
    description: >-
      Public REST API for CaltechDATA, the Caltech institutional research data
      repository built on InvenioRDM. Supports querying and retrieving records,
      metadata (DataCite 4 JSON), files, and DOIs. Verified live returning JSON
      record hits.
    humanURL: https://caltechlibrary.github.io/caltechdata_api/
    baseURL: https://data.caltech.edu/api/records
    tags: [ Research Data, Repository, InvenioRDM, DataCite, Open Data ]
    properties:
      - type: Documentation
        url: https://caltechlibrary.github.io/caltechdata_api/
      - type: GitHub
        url: https://github.com/caltechlibrary/caltechdata_api
  - aid: caltech:caltechdata-oai
    name: CaltechDATA OAI-PMH
    description: >-
      OAI-PMH metadata harvesting endpoint for CaltechDATA, enabling
      programmatic harvesting of repository metadata records. Verified live via
      the Identify verb.
    humanURL: https://data.caltech.edu/
    baseURL: https://data.caltech.edu/oai2d
    tags: [ Research Data, OAI-PMH, Metadata, Harvesting, Open Data ]
    properties:
      - type: Documentation
        url: https://data.caltech.edu/
  - aid: caltech:irsa-vo
    name: IRSA Virtual Observatory APIs (IPAC)
    description: >-
      Caltech/IPAC NASA Infrared Science Archive (IRSA) exposes IVOA-standard
      Virtual Observatory APIs, including Table Access Protocol (TAP), Simple
      Cone Search (SCS), and Simple Image Access (SIA v2), for programmatic
      access to NASA infrared and submillimeter mission catalogs and images.
      TAP sync endpoint verified live.
    humanURL: https://irsa.ipac.caltech.edu/voapi.html
    baseURL: https://irsa.ipac.caltech.edu/TAP
    tags: [ Astronomy, Virtual Observatory, TAP, NASA, Open Data, IPAC ]
    properties:
      - type: Documentation
        url: https://irsa.ipac.caltech.edu/voapi.html
      - type: Documentation
        url: https://irsa.ipac.caltech.edu/docs/program_interface/api_catalogs.html
      - type: GitHub
        url: https://github.com/Caltech-IPAC
common:
  - type: Website
    url: https://www.caltech.edu/
  - type: GitHub
    url: https://github.com/caltechlibrary
  - type: LinkedIn
    url: https://www.linkedin.com/school/california-institute-of-technology/
  - type: Plans
    url: plans/caltech-plans-pricing.yml
  - type: RateLimits
    url: rate-limits/caltech-rate-limits.yml
  - type: FinOps
    url: finops/caltech-finops.yml
  - type: Review
    url: review.yml
maintainers:
  - FN: Kin Lane
    email: [email protected]