Saildrone

Saildrone is an Alameda, California maritime autonomy company that designs, manufactures, and operates a global fleet of wind/solar-powered autonomous surface vehicles (USVs) for ocean science, maritime domain awareness, and defense applications. Founded in 2012 by Richard Jenkins, the company runs four USV classes — Explorer (23ft, environmental sensing), Voyager (33ft, MDA and counter-narcotics), Surveyor (65ft, deep-ocean bathymetric mapping), and the newer Spectre (ISR / anti-submarine warfare / kinetic payloads). Saildrone has logged over 2.5M nautical miles and 65,000 days at sea across customers including NOAA PMEL, NOAA SWFSC, the US Navy (Task Force 59), NASA, EUMETSAT, BOEM, and Lockheed Martin (which invested $50M in October 2025). Saildrone delivers data through two product surfaces — the Saildrone Mission Portal (secure web app for tasking and live multi-INT visualization) and the Saildrone Public Mission API (BETA) at developer-mission.saildrone.com, which exposes key/secret authenticated endpoints for health, drone access discovery, and time-series retrieval across vehicle, atmospheric, oceanographic, and biogeochemical datasets. Open ocean data from past missions is published via NOAA PMEL ERDDAP and NCEI under open-data terms.

Saildrone publishes 3 API contracts indexed on the APIs.io network: Authentication API, Health API, and Time Series API. Tagged areas include Maritime, Ocean Data, USV, Unmanned Surface Vehicle, and Autonomous Systems.

The Saildrone catalog on APIs.io includes 1 JSON-LD context and 2 Spectral governance rulesets.

Saildrone’s developer surface includes product news, GitHub presence, YouTube channel, engineering blog, and 24 more developer resources.

🌐 Visit website 📡 Profile data on GitHub

28.6/100 thin ▬ flat Agent 22/100 agent aware Front door AI 3/6 light Heartbeat 24/100 dormant saas Full breakdown ↓
scored 2026-11-06 · rubric v0.27.0 · Show this score on your site →

AccessFreeApproval

1 published contract

Maritime Ocean DataUSVUnmanned Surface VehicleAutonomous SystemsMETOCMaritime Domain AwarenessAnti-Submarine WarfareDefense Climate Oceanography BathymetryBiogeochemical

Kin Score

Kin Score How this is scored →
scored 2026-11-06 · rubric v0.27.0

Composite quality — 28.6/100 · thin

Contract Quality 11.4 / 19

Developer Ergonomics 1.8 / 15

Access Clarity 1.2 / 15

Operational Transparency 1.3 / 10

Contract Governance 2.5 / 9

Discoverability 4.4 / 8

Regulatory Posture 1.6 / 15

Create-or-Update Ergonomics 0.0 / 10

Agent readiness — 22/100 · agent aware

Machine-Readable Contract 18 / 18

Agentic Access Contract 0 / 10

Documented Reversibility 0 / 6

MCP Server 0 / 12

Machine-Readable Auth 10 / 10

Idempotency 0 / 9

Stable Error Semantics 0 / 8

Request/Response Examples 7 / 7

Rate-Limit Signaling 7 / 7

Typed Event Surface 0 / 6

Agent Skills 0 / 5

Well-Known Catalog 0 / 4

Consent & Bot Identity 0 / 3

A2A Agent Card 0 / 8

Dry-Run / Simulate Mode 0 / 4

Delegated User Identity 0 / 6

Protected Resource Metadata 0 / 5

Registration Without a Human 0 / 6

Agentic Commerce Well-Known Document 0 / 5

Pagination 5 / 5

Distinct Operations 3 / 3

MCP Tool Quality 6 / 6

Regulatory Posture applies to this provider. Its tags matched the Horizontal (data, software, accessibility, platform) regime, so Regulatory Posture carries 15 points of the composite. If this regime is wrong for your business, say so on your provider repo — the applicability map is public and we will correct it.

Create-or-Update Ergonomics applies to this provider. This API accepts writes, so it carries 10 points of the composite. It is scored from the published contracts themselves: whether a caller can create-or-update in one call, whether the write accepts a key the caller already holds, and whether the response says which branch ran. Without that, every write needs a search-and-branch in front of it, and the first time that check is skipped a duplicate record is created. Scored against the observed mean rather than raw — a provider at the catalog average is unchanged by this facet, not penalised by it.

The six quality facets above are damped to 75 points between them, because the conditional facet above carries the other 25. That is why each facet's contribution is shown against a damped maximum: raising a quality facet moves the composite by 75% of its nominal weight, not 100%. The full arithmetic is at apis.io/rating/.

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Agent readiness — checks not met, largest first (exact, from this profile):

MCP Server +12 pts — deployment.mode + probe verdict on the mcp/ manifest, not the pointer; an unprobed slug falls back to authorship
Agentic Access Contract +10 pts — agentic_access artifact present (x-agentic-access), graded by author
Idempotency +9 pts — OpenAPI mutating operations declare an idempotency key — a header, a request-body property, or a named de-duplication token whose own description says so (verified); else common[].type matches /idempoten/i (documented)
Stable Error Semantics +8 pts — OpenAPI $refs a shared error schema across 4xx/5xx responses (verified), else common[].type includes ErrorCatalog / ErrorCodes / DeclineCodes
A2A Agent Card +8 pts — a2a/-a2a.yml manifest, graded on conformance.grade against A2A 1.0.0
Registration Without a Human +6 pts — a `registration_endpoint` in the served RFC 8414 / OIDC discovery document

9 more unmet checks in the Agent Readiness table above.

Kin Score — facets with the most composite points still available (weight × headroom):

Access Clarity scores 7.9 — up to +18.4 composite points
Developer Ergonomics scores 11.9 — up to +17.6 composite points
Operational Transparency scores 13.2 — up to +11.3 composite points

Each check links to what satisfies it. Publish the artifact, or tell us where it already lives, and the score moves on the next scoring run.

Improve this rating by publishing the missing artifacts — every area above can be raised, and the full rubric is at apis.io/rating/. Every facet and dimension name above is a link: it opens that measurement's own page — what it means, the exact checks that feed it, how the whole catalog distributes on it, and the providers at the top of it. This rating is computed from the provider profile at artifacts.apis.io/saildrone/apis.yml: open an issue on github.com/api-evangelist/saildrone to ask a question or point us at an artifact you publish. Submit an artifact on GitHub — free → Manage your own listing — the Influence plan, $499/mo →

Markets this provider is in provisional

The Kin Score Market layer reads a provider inside its market: its position, and how deep its integrations go. Depth is only comparable within a position. Provisional and unweighted: not part of the Kin Score or agent readiness.

Market	Position	Depth	Registered MCP server	Declares compatibility
Maritime Logistics (ocean shipping, eBL, ports)	distribution	9.6 (thin)	-	-
Data Marketplaces (data providers on cloud data platforms)	distribution	9.6 (thin)	-	-

Registered MCP server and declares compatibility are report only — not weighted. Undeclared means we found nothing we can read, so there is no number: we never infer integrations.

Standards implemented 1

Standards this provider implements or carries. De facto ones are profiled and measured by the API Commons; formal ones come from the standards directory and are linked by the provider's own tags. The evidence column says how each claim was established — not that it was made.

OpenAPI

measured — observed by APIs.io (published)

APIs 3

Individual APIs this provider publishes, each with its own machine-readable definition.

Saildrone Authentication API

Key/secret exchange for bearer tokens and drone access discovery

Saildrone Health API

Service health check

Saildrone Time Series API

Mission time-series data across vehicle, atmospheric, oceanographic, and biogeochemical datasets

Open Collections 3

Open, tool-agnostic API collections (OpenAPI-derived and Bruno).

Saildrone Mission Authentication API

OPEN COLLECTION

Saildrone Mission Health API

OPEN COLLECTION

Saildrone Mission Time Series API

OPEN COLLECTION

Saildrone API pricing

Not yet checked against Saildrone's own pricing page. Compiled by API Evangelist on 2026-05-24 from www.saildrone.com/service-model/fully-managed; confirm before you rely on a figure. A free plan or tier is listed.

Plan	Price
Saildrone Fully Managed (Mission-as-a-Service) contract	—
Saildrone Public Mission API (BETA) gated	Free
Saildrone Mission Portal gated	Free
NOAA PMEL Saildrone Open Data free	Free

Plan details, limits and sources →

Pricing Plans 1

Published pricing tiers and plan structures.

Saildrone Plans Pricing

4 plans

PLANS

Rate Limits 1

Documented rate limits and quota policies.

Saildrone Rate Limits

3 limits

RATE LIMITS

Service Levels 1

Uptime the provider promises or reports, as SLA4OAI. Read from its own pages; APIs.io runs no monitors.

Saildrone

SLA

FinOps 1

Cost, billing, and metering signals for API financial operations.

Saildrone Finops

FINOPS

Semantic Vocabularies 1

JSON-LD contexts and semantic vocabularies used across these APIs.

Saildrone Context

24 classes · 8 properties

JSON-LD

Spectral Rules 2

Spectral governance rulesets for linting and validating these APIs.

Saildrone — jsonschema rules

5 rules · 3 warnings 2 info

SPECTRAL

Saildrone API Rules

6 rules · 4 errors 2 warnings

SPECTRAL

JSON Schema 2

Standalone JSON Schema definitions for this provider's data models.

Saildrone Mission Access

4 properties

JSON SCHEMA

Saildrone Mission Time Series Record

22 properties

JSON SCHEMA

Examples 3

Example request and response payloads for these APIs.

Saildrone Authenticate Example

2 fields

EXAMPLE

Saildrone Get Time Series Example

2 fields

EXAMPLE

Saildrone List Access Example

2 fields

EXAMPLE

Security Posture 1

Authentication, domain security, vulnerability disclosure, and trust-center signals.

Saildrone Domain Security

TLSv1.3 · HSTS · DMARC

SECURITY

Resources

Get Started 1

Portal, sign-up, and the first successful call

MissionPortal

MissionPortal

Documentation 1

Reference material describing how the API behaves

SwaggerUI

SwaggerUI

Design & Contract 1

Pagination, idempotency, versioning, errors, and events

Vocabulary

Vocabulary

Build 1

SDKs, sample code, and the tooling you integrate with

GitHub

GitHub

Access & Security 1

Authentication, authorization, and security posture

DomainSecurity

DomainSecurity

Learn 1

Tutorials, courses, talks, and written guidance

YouTube

YouTube

Operate 2

Status, limits, changes, and where to get help

Contact

Contact

RateLimits

RateLimits

Commercial 2

Pricing, plans, and the legal terms of use

Plans

Plans

FinOps

FinOps

Company 10

The organization behind the API

Website

About

News

Press

Careers

PartnerOpenData

PartnerOpenData

LinkedIn

Twitter

Twitter

Blog

Blog

Scroll for all 10

Other 8

Properties that don't map to a standard resource type

API

DataProducts

Platform

Platform

Platform

Platform

Services

Capability

Scroll for all 8

Source (apis.yml)

aid: saildrone
name: Saildrone
description: Saildrone is an Alameda, California maritime autonomy company that designs, manufactures, and operates a global
  fleet of wind/solar-powered autonomous surface vehicles (USVs) for ocean science, maritime domain awareness, and defense
  applications. Founded in 2012 by Richard Jenkins, the company runs four USV classes — Explorer (23ft, environmental sensing),
  Voyager (33ft, MDA and counter-narcotics), Surveyor (65ft, deep-ocean bathymetric mapping), and the newer Spectre (ISR /
  anti-submarine warfare / kinetic payloads). Saildrone has logged over 2.5M nautical miles and 65,000 days at sea across
  customers including NOAA PMEL, NOAA SWFSC, the US Navy (Task Force 59), NASA, EUMETSAT, BOEM, and Lockheed Martin (which
  invested $50M in October 2025). Saildrone delivers data through two product surfaces — the Saildrone Mission Portal (secure
  web app for tasking and live multi-INT visualization) and the Saildrone Public Mission API (BETA) at developer-mission.saildrone.com,
  which exposes key/secret authenticated endpoints for health, drone access discovery, and time-series retrieval across vehicle,
  atmospheric, oceanographic, and biogeochemical datasets. Open ocean data from past missions is published via NOAA PMEL ERDDAP
  and NCEI under open-data terms.
type: Index
deliveryModel:
  model: saas
  open_source: false
  commercial: true
  callable_host: false
  label: Hosted service · you call their endpoint
  confidence: medium
  source:
  - openapi
  - pricing
  generated: '2026-08-28'
  method: derived
accessModel:
  pricing: free
  onboarding: approval
  trial: false
  try_now: false
  public: false
  label: Free · Requires approval
  confidence: low
  source:
  - plans
  - security
  generated: '2026-11-06'
  method: derived
position: Producing
access: 3rd-Party
image: https://kinlane-images.s3.amazonaws.com/shared/apis-json/icons/saildrone.png
tags:
- Maritime
- Ocean Data
- USV
- Unmanned Surface Vehicle
- Autonomous Systems
- METOC
- Maritime Domain Awareness
- Anti-Submarine Warfare
- Defense
- Climate
- Oceanography
- Bathymetry
- Biogeochemical
tags_raw:
- Maritime
- Ocean Data
- USV
- Unmanned Surface Vehicle
- Autonomous Systems
- METOC
- Maritime Domain Awareness
- Anti Submarine Warfare
- Defense
- Climate
- Oceanography
- Bathymetry
- Biogeochemical
url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/saildrone/refs/heads/main/apis.yml
created: '2026-05-24'
modified: '2026-05-24'
specificationVersion: '0.23'
apis:
- aid: saildrone:saildrone-authentication-api
  name: Saildrone Authentication API
  description: Key/secret exchange for bearer tokens and drone access discovery
  humanURL: https://www.saildrone.com/data-delivery/api
  tags:
  - Authentication
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/saildrone-authentication-api-openapi.yml
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://www.saildrone.com/data-delivery/api
  - type: SwaggerUI
    url: https://developer-mission.saildrone.com/api-docs
  - type: JSONSchema
    url: json-schema/saildrone-mission-access-schema.json
  - type: JSONSchema
    url: json-schema/saildrone-mission-time-series-record-schema.json
  - type: JSONLD
    url: json-ld/saildrone-context.jsonld
  - type: Examples
    url: examples/saildrone-authenticate-example.json
  - type: Examples
    url: examples/saildrone-list-access-example.json
  - type: Examples
    url: examples/saildrone-get-time-series-example.json
  - type: SpectralRules
    url: rules/saildrone-rules.yml
- aid: saildrone:saildrone-health-api
  name: Saildrone Health API
  description: Service health check
  humanURL: https://www.saildrone.com/data-delivery/api
  tags:
  - Health
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/saildrone-health-api-openapi.yml
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://www.saildrone.com/data-delivery/api
  - type: SwaggerUI
    url: https://developer-mission.saildrone.com/api-docs
  - type: JSONSchema
    url: json-schema/saildrone-mission-access-schema.json
  - type: JSONSchema
    url: json-schema/saildrone-mission-time-series-record-schema.json
  - type: JSONLD
    url: json-ld/saildrone-context.jsonld
  - type: Examples
    url: examples/saildrone-authenticate-example.json
  - type: Examples
    url: examples/saildrone-list-access-example.json
  - type: Examples
    url: examples/saildrone-get-time-series-example.json
  - type: SpectralRules
    url: rules/saildrone-rules.yml
- aid: saildrone:saildrone-time-series-api
  name: Saildrone Time Series API
  description: Mission time-series data across vehicle, atmospheric, oceanographic, and biogeochemical datasets
  humanURL: https://www.saildrone.com/data-delivery/api
  tags:
  - Time Series
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/saildrone-time-series-api-openapi.yml
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://www.saildrone.com/data-delivery/api
  - type: SwaggerUI
    url: https://developer-mission.saildrone.com/api-docs
  - type: JSONSchema
    url: json-schema/saildrone-mission-access-schema.json
  - type: JSONSchema
    url: json-schema/saildrone-mission-time-series-record-schema.json
  - type: JSONLD
    url: json-ld/saildrone-context.jsonld
  - type: Examples
    url: examples/saildrone-authenticate-example.json
  - type: Examples
    url: examples/saildrone-list-access-example.json
  - type: Examples
    url: examples/saildrone-get-time-series-example.json
  - type: SpectralRules
    url: rules/saildrone-rules.yml
common:
- type: DomainSecurity
  url: security/saildrone-domain-security.yml
- type: Website
  url: https://www.saildrone.com
- type: About
  url: https://www.saildrone.com/about
- type: API
  url: https://www.saildrone.com/data-delivery/api
- type: SwaggerUI
  url: https://developer-mission.saildrone.com/api-docs
- type: MissionPortal
  url: https://www.saildrone.com/data-delivery/mission-portal
- type: DataProducts
  url: https://www.saildrone.com/technology/data
- type: Platform
  url: https://www.saildrone.com/platform/spectre
- type: Platform
  url: https://www.saildrone.com/platform/surveyor
- type: Platform
  url: https://www.saildrone.com/platform/voyager
- type: Platform
  url: https://www.saildrone.com/platform/explorer
- type: Services
  url: https://www.saildrone.com/service-model/fully-managed
- type: Capability
  url: https://www.saildrone.com/capabilities/metocean-survey
- type: News
  url: https://www.saildrone.com/news
- type: Press
  url: https://www.saildrone.com/press
- type: Careers
  url: https://www.saildrone.com/careers
- type: Contact
  url: https://www.saildrone.com/contact
- type: PartnerOpenData
  url: https://www.pmel.noaa.gov/ocs/saildrone/data-access
- type: PartnerOpenData
  url: https://data.pmel.noaa.gov/generic/erddap/tabledap/saildrone_gts.html
- type: GitHub
  url: https://github.com/Saildrone
- type: LinkedIn
  url: https://www.linkedin.com/company/saildrone
- type: Twitter
  url: https://twitter.com/saildrone
- type: YouTube
  url: https://www.youtube.com/@saildrone
- type: Plans
  url: plans/saildrone-plans-pricing.yml
- type: RateLimits
  url: rate-limits/saildrone-rate-limits.yml
- type: FinOps
  url: finops/saildrone-finops.yml
- type: Vocabulary
  url: vocabulary/saildrone-vocabulary.yml
- url: https://www.saildrone.com/news
  type: Blog
maintainers:
- FN: Kin Lane
  email: kin@apievangelist.com

Saildrone API — frequently asked questions

Does Saildrone have an API?

Yes. APIs.io lists 3 APIs from Saildrone, including Saildrone Authentication API, Saildrone Health API and Saildrone Time Series API.

Is there an OpenAPI specification for the Saildrone API?

Yes. APIs.io indexes 3 OpenAPI specifications for Saildrone, each linked for download from this page.

How do I authenticate with the Saildrone API?

Saildrone uses bearer-token authentication.

How much does the Saildrone API cost?

APIs.io lists 4 pricing plans for Saildrone, with each plan's price, limits and inclusions under Pricing on this page.

Is the Saildrone API ready for AI agents?

Saildrone has a Kin Score of 28.6 out of 100 (thin) and an Agent Readiness score of 21.9 (agent-aware), scored by API Evangelist on 2026-11-06.

Work with this as data

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get_provider_artifactsEvery artifact this provider publishes, grouped by type.
get_provider_operationsEvery operation across all of their OpenAPIs — one call instead of parsing every spec.
get_provider_toolsEvery MCP tool they ship, with the operation each wraps.
get_provider_evidenceHow each part of their score was established. Free — the basis for a claim should not sit behind it.
get_provider_ratingPRO — composite, band, trend and facet scores.
apis_io_searchSTART HERE — APIs, providers and tags for one query, each with its total.
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