Spacenews

What spacenews MCP server does

The spacenews MCP server exposes selected Spaceflight News API v4 operations as MCP tools. It is intended for assistants and applications that need to retrieve spaceflight reporting without implementing the API connection themselves. The service is free to use and does not require API authentication.

Three tools are available in the standalone package:

• get_articles retrieves recent spaceflight news articles in publication-date order. Results include the title, summary, URL, image, and source.
• search_articles looks for spaceflight news articles matching a keyword. Results include the title, summary, URL, and publication date.
• get_blogs retrieves recent spaceflight blog posts in publication-date order. Results include the title, summary, URL, image, and source.

This fits agents that need current spaceflight coverage, article discovery by topic, or links and summaries for a research workflow.

How it works

The standalone package communicates with an MCP client through standard input and output. It handles MCP initialize, tools/list, and tools/call requests, and exposes only the three spaceflight tools listed above.

A hosted option is available at https://gateway.pipeworx.io/spacenews/mcp. The hosted endpoint lists the pack tools together with shared Pipeworx gateway tools, including routing and discovery functions. Its exact tool scope is returned by the connection's initialize response and may be larger than the three pack-specific tools.

The same gateway also provides a full endpoint at https://gateway.pipeworx.io/mcp. The pack endpoint lists the Spacenews tools directly, while the full endpoint lists tools from the broader catalog directly. The gateway's ask_pipeworx function can route questions to available data sources from either connection.

The tools can also be called through HTTP. For example, the gateway exposes spacenews_get_articles under its versioned tools API.

Setup and configuration

For a hosted connection, add the following MCP server entry to a compatible client:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "spacenews": {
      "url": "https://gateway.pipeworx.io/spacenews/mcp"
    }
  }
}

For local use, configure the spacenews MCP server with npx:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "spacenews": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@pipeworx/mcp-spacenews"]
    }
  }
}

Running npx -y @pipeworx/mcp-spacenews directly starts the local process and confirms that it can launch. The local mode does not require a Pipeworx account or a gateway round trip.

Tools and capabilities

Use get_articles when an agent needs the newest general spaceflight news. Use search_articles when the request contains a subject, mission, organization, or other keyword. Use get_blogs when the desired content is from the blog collection rather than the article collection.

The HTTP interface supports direct calls such as POST /v1/tools/spacenews_get_articles with a JSON body containing a limit value. Tool inspection is available through the gateway's tool inspection endpoint.

Limitations and notes

The standalone process exposes only the Spacenews pack tools; it does not provide the shared Pipeworx meta-tools. The hosted pack endpoint adds those shared tools, so its tool list is larger than the local server's list.

The material identifies the data source as Spaceflight News API v4 but does not specify result pagination, rate limits, retention, or an exact default result count. Client integrations should therefore rely on the tool schemas and returned responses rather than assuming those details.