specification: API Commons Rate Limits
specificationVersion: '0.1'
schema: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/interface-research/main/schema/api-commons.yml#/$defs/RateLimits
provider: SpaceX (Community API)
providerId: spacex
created: '2026-05-29'
modified: '2026-05-29'
reconciled: true
tags:
  - Rate Limiting
  - Caching
description: >-
  The community SpaceX REST API enforces a per-IP request-rate limit of
  approximately 50 requests/second at the hosted endpoint
  (https://api.spacexdata.com). All GET responses and POST /query responses
  are also cached server-side via Redis (launches 20s; capsules / cores /
  launchpads / landpads / crew / ships / payloads 5min; dragons / rockets
  24h). Throttled responses return HTTP 429. Self-hosted deployments do not
  enforce any rate limit by default.
sources:
  - https://github.com/r-spacex/SpaceX-API/blob/master/README.md
  - https://github.com/r-spacex/SpaceX-API/blob/master/docs/README.md
  - https://github.com/r-spacex/SpaceX-API/blob/master/middleware
headers: {}
responseCodes:
  throttled: 429
limits:
  - name: Per-IP request rate
    scope: ip
    metric: requests_per_second
    limit: 50
  - name: Launches cache TTL
    scope: server
    metric: seconds
    limit: 20
  - name: Capsules / Cores / Launchpads / Landpads / Crew / Ships / Payloads cache TTL
    scope: server
    metric: seconds
    limit: 300
  - name: Dragons / Rockets cache TTL
    scope: server
    metric: seconds
    limit: 86400