nasa.gov

Readiness by lane

Green: nasa.gov. Thin bar: Government Services peer median.

Priority fixes for nasa.gov

Ordered by impact and by how common each practice is among peers.

1. Priority 1 · Accelerate

   No render-blocking scripts in <head>

   Observed: The homepage <head> loaded 1 external script without async or defer.

   Why it matters: A plain <script src> in the head stops the browser from showing anything until that file has downloaded and run.

   What to do: Add defer to scripts that need the DOM, async to independent ones such as analytics, or move them to the end of the body.

   On WordPress: Since WordPress 6.3, scripts can be registered with a defer or async loading strategy.

   39% of Government Services peers do this. Limit: Based on the homepage HTML delivered to an automated client; scripts that run later were not executed.

   Guide: Control Third-Party Scripts Before They Control Your Page

2. Priority 2 · Harden

   Content Security Policy present

   Observed: The homepage response did not include a Content-Security-Policy header.

   What to do: Start with Content-Security-Policy-Report-Only to see what would break, tighten the policy over a few weeks, then enforce it.

   41% of Government Services peers do this.

   Guide: Payment Security and PCI DSS: What Website Owners Need to Know

3. Priority 3 · Harden

   X-Content-Type-Options: nosniff

   Observed: The homepage response did not include X-Content-Type-Options: nosniff.

   What to do: Send X-Content-Type-Options: nosniff on all responses and make sure each file is served with the correct Content-Type.

   64% of Government Services peers do this.

   Guide: A Practical Website Health Check for Owners

4. Priority 4 · Harden

   CAA records limit who can issue certificates

   Observed: No CAA record was found for nasa.gov, so any public certificate authority may issue for it.

   What to do: Publish CAA records naming every CA you actually use, including the CAs your CDN uses for managed certificates. Add an iodef contact if you want reports.

   17% of Government Services peers do this.

   Guide: HTTPS and TLS Guide for Website Owners

What nasa.gov already does well

Practices fewer than half of Government Services peers use.

• Modern image formats in useWebP or AVIF images detected.15% of peers
• Structured data presentJSON-LD structured data found.15% of peers
• DNSSEC signedDNSSEC delegation (DS record) present.19% of peers

What we saw

Homepage checked

https://www.nasa.gov/

Homepage response

HTTP 200

TLS

TLSv1.3, HTTP/2

Certificate

Let's Encrypt, 89-day validity, expiring 2027-01-10

CDN or edge

WordPress VIP

Platform or framework

WordPress, Adobe Experience Manager

DNS operators

Akamai Edge DNS

HSTS

max-age 365 days, includeSubDomains, preload

DMARC policy

p=reject

Homepage HTML

346 KB, br

Images on homepage

75 (jpg 388, png 71, webp 10, svg 3)

Limits: homepage only, one location, one moment. Header checks reflect the homepage response; other pages may differ.

Stack and providers

Seen in the homepage response, certificate and DNS. Provider pages compare how their customers configure the same checks.

All 31 checks

Select a gap for the method and fix. How each check works

Compare with other Government Services sites

• arbeitsagentur.de80
• justice.gov81
• mybharat.gov.in81
• xn--80aapampemcchfmo7a3c9ehj.xn--p1ai82
• xn--90aivcdt6dxbc.xn--p1ai81

Government Services readiness benchmark