Life & fun · alternatives · 2026
24 alternatives to Artemis II Moon Mission Simulator in the Browser
I built a browser-based simulator of NASA's Artemis II mission — the first crewed lunar flight since Apollo 17. You fly the actual mission profile: launch to parking orbit, raise to High Earth Orbit, fire Trans-Lunar Injection when the Moon is in position, swing behind the Moon, and return to Earth. The physics uses RK4 integration with real Earth and Moon gravity. Have fun experimenting with what happens if you don't time it right!
Below are 24 products that do a similar job, ranked by how close each is in meaning and then by launch-day votes. Prices are shown for the 1 we have checked on their own sites, 1 of them free or with a free tier.
- 1
- 2
I (17y/o) have been developing a rocket launch simulation that allows the user to explore what it's like launching a rocket from earth and putting it into orbit. This idea originally started as an educational simulation but as i've gone more down the rabbit hole the more i've wanted to make it realistic. The problem is that I've never had a formal orbital mechanics class or anything like that so I don't know what I'm missing, what I currently have implemented is: Variable gravity Variable Atmospheric drag (US Standard Atmosphere 1976) Multi-stage rockets Closed-loop guidance /…
Jan 2026 · donutthejedi.com · its alternatives →
- 3NA
Apr 2026 · sunnywingsvirtual.com · its alternatives →
- 4
Lunar lander type game with computational fluid dynamics - s-macke/Interplanetary-Postal-Service
2018 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 5MA
Made a little Artemis II tracker for anyone else who is unnecessarily invested in this mission: https://artemis-ii-tracker.com/ For those of us who apparently need a dedicated place to monitor this mission instead of behaving like well-adjusted people.
Apr 2026 · artemis-ii-tracker.com · its alternatives →
- 6MS
Did this a few years ago. Seems apropos. Sources and more here: https://github.com/EngineersNeedArt/Mooncraft2000
Apr 2026 · mooncraft2000.com · its alternatives →
- 7
Pilot the SpaceX Dragon 2 vehicle to the ISS!
2020 · iss-sim.spacex.com · its alternatives →
- 8
There are plenty of Artemis II trackers out there. I looked at a bunch and kept running into the same issues - some had data that didn't look right, it was hard to use on smaller screen, others felt overly complicated for what I actually wanted to know: what's the crew doing, where is Orion, how fast is it going. The best one I found was issinfo.net/artemis, which inspired a lot of the design. So I built my own. The part that was genuinely interesting to me was the data. Turns out anyone can query JPL's Horizons API for full ephemeris data on the Orion spacecraft - position, velocity,…
Apr 2026 · artemis.fyi · its alternatives →
- 9GI
Just for fun and self education, I've built this over a weekend to teach myself why orbits exist, not just show planets going around. Something that was never clearly explain to me in school. It opens with a guided tour that builds the idea up step by step: two bodies and the equal/opposite force, inertia (the Sun is removed and Earth just drifts straight), then "an orbit is falling and continuously missing," cosmic velocities with a little rocket, Voyager 1 & 2's real gravity assists (the clock runs the actual 1977–1989 dates so the planets orbit into their grand-tour alignment and the…
Jun 2026 · qunabu.github.io · its alternatives →
- 10
Web-based lunar voxel game. Contribute to EngineersNeedArt/Mooncraft2000 development by creating an account on GitHub.
2022 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 11RD
2022 · rocket-drone.lol · its alternatives →
- 12
I got pretty good at (and very addicted to) the lunar lander game from a few days ago... so I decided to make an autopilot for the lander based on what I felt like was the best strategy! Now I can have perfect landings every time without lifting a finger :D Writing the autopilot code was a lot more fun than I expected! It felt a bit like programming a robot. Source code: https://github.com/szhu/lunar-lander-autopilot Original lander HN post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35032506
2023 · szhu.github.io · its alternatives →
- 13
- 14
Atlas of Spacefree▲770Hello HN! Sharing a recent side project of mine, the Atlas of Space, that I built out to explore the Solar System. As a long-time space nerd, I realized recently that I didn't have a good intuition on the scale, speed, and relative orientation of the celestial bodies around us. So over the break I built out a kind of spatial Wikipedia to click around and learn about planets, moons, asteroids, and other bodies orbiting the Sun. The physics is all simulated in the browser using simple Newtonian mechanics. There's a lot left to do from here, including modeling objects in non-Keplerian orbits…
2025 · atlasof.space · its alternatives →
- 15
I’ve been working on this game for the past few weeks. It’s written in plain JavaScript, mostly with canvas, with no dependencies. The code is here: https://github.com/ehmorris/lunar-lander
2023 · ehmorris.com · its alternatives →
- 16
- 17
- 18
Features include: - Several preset periodic orbits: the classic Figure-8, plus newly discovered 3D solutions from Li and Liao's recent database of 10,000+ orbits (https://arxiv.org/html/2508.08568v1) - Full 3D camera controls (rotate/pan/zoom) with body-following mode - Force and velocity vector visualization - Timeline scrubbing to explore the full orbital period The 3D presets are particularly interesting. Try "O₂(1.2)" or "Piano O₆(0.6)" from the Load Presets menu to see configurations where bodies weave in and out of the orbital plane. Most browser…
Nov 2025 · trisolarchaos.com · its alternatives →
- 19
Second only to working at Space X
2015 · kerbalspaceprogram.com · its alternatives →
- 20
Live NASA solar imagery in 12 wavelengths, the moon phase tonight for 200+ cities, and real space weather. Free on iOS and Android. No ads, no signup.
Apr 2026 · lumara-space.app · its alternatives →
- 21
Try (and fail) to land Elon Musk's SpaceX rocket
2015 · scratch.mit.edu · its alternatives →
- 22
This is a little hobby project that I hope you enjoy. You can see where the International Space Station is now, with live HD video from NASA, on a realistic 3D globe. The positions of the sun and moon are also accurate, though distances aren't to scale. The clouds are also near-realtime; I span that out into a separate project at https://clouds.matteason.co.uk, where the cloud images I create from EUMETSAT data are freely available. I've got more features almost ready to go, like the ability to turn off all UI, toggleable clouds and turning off the day/night cycle I'd love for…
2024 · iss.matteason.co.uk · its alternatives →
- 23
Moon Monday▲73Get lunar exploration and science updates every Monday
2021 · jatan.space · its alternatives →
- 24
Build and manage space outposts on the Moon and Mars in this realistic simulation game. From the first step on the Moon to Mars colonization, launch rockets, take care of your astronauts and expand your base as you explore the cosmos. No grind, just pure management and exploration fun.
2023 · store.steampowered.com · its alternatives →
Also compare
Ranked by how close each launch is in meaning, then by votes. Prices were read from each product’s own site when checked and can change. Refine with your own description →