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Quick Start

The hosted production server is the supported way to use this MCP server. There is no self-hosted distribution: point your MCP client at the public endpoint, sign in, and your client will discover the tool catalog automatically.

Endpoint

https://mcp.io-aerospace.org/mcp

Modern MCP clients (Claude Desktop, Claude.ai, Cursor, MCP Inspector, the official SDKs in TypeScript and Python) will negotiate the streamable-HTTP transport at this URL.

A legacy SSE endpoint is also published at https://mcp.io-aerospace.org/mcp/sse for older clients. Use the streamable-HTTP URL unless your client documentation explicitly requires SSE.

The path matters

The MCP transport is mounted at the /mcp sub-path, not the site root. The RFC 8707 resource identifier is therefore https://mcp.io-aerospace.org/mcp — there is no ambiguity around a trailing slash. Some clients will fail with McpAuthorizationError if the URL is given as a bare origin, so always include /mcp.

Sign in

The server requires OAuth 2.1 authentication, handled by WorkOS AuthKit. You do not need to paste an API key. Modern MCP clients perform the sign-in flow automatically:

  1. The client makes its first request to the MCP endpoint
  2. The server responds with 401 Unauthorized and a WWW-Authenticate header pointing at the protected-resource metadata
  3. The client discovers the WorkOS authorization server, opens your browser, and you sign in once
  4. The client stores the access token and uses it for subsequent requests

A valid sign-in alone is not sufficient. Your email must have an active license on the IO Aerospace license server for tool calls to succeed. See Authentication for the full flow and how to obtain a license.

Connect with Claude Desktop

Add the server to your Claude Desktop configuration (claude_desktop_config.json):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "astrodynamics": {
      "transport": {
        "type": "http",
        "url": "https://mcp.io-aerospace.org/mcp"
      }
    }
  }
}

Restart Claude Desktop. On first use the browser will open for sign-in.

Connect with the MCP TypeScript SDK

import { Client } from "@modelcontextprotocol/sdk/client/index.js";
import { HttpClientTransport } from "@modelcontextprotocol/sdk/client/transport/http.js";

const transport = new HttpClientTransport(new URL("https://mcp.io-aerospace.org/mcp"));
const client = new Client(
  { name: "example-client", version: "1.0.0" },
  { capabilities: { tools: {} } },
  transport
);

await client.connect();
const tools = await client.listTools();
console.log(tools);

Other clients are covered in MCP client integration.

Make your first tool call

Once connected, the tool catalog is discoverable through standard MCP tools/list. A few illustrative calls (parameters use the on-wire JSON names):

Tool: CurrentDateTime — no arguments. Returns the current UTC time in the server's canonical Time model.

Tool: GetEphemerisAsStateVectors

{
  "observerName": "SUN",
  "targetName": "EARTH",
  "frame": "ICRF",
  "startTime": "2024-06-21T12:00:00",
  "endTime": "2024-06-21T12:00:00",
  "timeStep": 86400,
  "aberrationCorrection": "None"
}

Tool: ComputeHohmannTransferDeltaV

{
  "currentCircularRadius": 6778000,
  "targetCircularRadius": 42164000,
  "centerOfMotion": "EARTH"
}

See the Tool Reference for every tool with its parameters and an example.

Next steps