https://github.com/drewmoore/asteroid-tracker

A web API for tracking asteroids, meteors, and other objects near the Earth
https://github.com/drewmoore/asteroid-tracker

Last synced: about 2 months ago
JSON representation

A web API for tracking asteroids, meteors, and other objects near the Earth

• Host: GitHub
• URL: https://github.com/drewmoore/asteroid-tracker
• Owner: drewmoore
• Created: 2017-06-28T07:07:33.000Z (almost 9 years ago)
• Default Branch: master
• Last Pushed: 2017-06-30T05:23:27.000Z (almost 9 years ago)
• Last Synced: 2025-12-07T18:57:05.540Z (6 months ago)
• Language: JavaScript
• Size: 33.2 KB
• Stars: 0
• Watchers: 1
• Forks: 0
• Open Issues: 0
• Metadata Files:
  • Readme: README.md

Awesome Lists containing this project

README

          
[![Build Status](https://travis-ci.org/drewmoore/asteroid-tracker.svg?branch=master)](https://travis-ci.org/drewmoore/asteroid-tracker)

# Asteroid Tracker

This Web API allows users to search NASA's database for objects close to Earth's orbit.

## Getting started

- Clone or fork the repository.

- Set the environment variable `NASA_KEY` with your NASA API key.

- Run `yarn`

- Make sure that MongoDB is installed and the server is running.

  - You can optionally set the environment variable `MONGO_PORT` to whichever port your Mongo server is listening. The default is 27017.

- Seed the database with data from NASA's API by running `npm run fetch_neos`.

- Start the server with `npm run serve`.

- Run the tests with `npm test`.

## Technologies Employed

- Express

  - The choice of Express for a simple, lightweight API server felt natural.

  - The un-opinionated and tabula-rasa-oriented approach of the node server presents a good opportunity to demonstrate my own sense of application structure.

  - The combination of server-side Javascript with MongoDB's BSON brings with it a certain feeling of consistency.

  - I had been trained in Express, but it had been a while since I had worked with it. I wanted to take an opportunity to revisit the framework.

- MongoDB

  - MongoDB's ability to store and work with a variety of data types makes it a beneficial tool for the assignment. Mongo's abilities to perform bulk writes and aggregates were particularly useful in saving API data and grouping asteroids by date.

- Mongoose

  - I included this ORM for simple document validations and for better code maintainability through built-in CRUD-related methods.

- Mocha with Chai

  - Testing is always essential, and these are two proven tools.

  - Chai provides useful tools for acceptance testing in addition to its human-readable syntax.