Life & fun · alternatives · 2026
24 alternatives to Rocket Launch and Orbit Simulator
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 /…
Rocket Launch and Orbit Simulator is an educational tool that lets users experience launching rockets from Earth and achieving orbital insertion. Built by a 17-year-old developer, it features variable gravity… 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.
- 1GI
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 →
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Second only to working at Space X
2015 · kerbalspaceprogram.com · its alternatives →
- 4
Try (and fail) to land Elon Musk's SpaceX rocket
2015 · scratch.mit.edu · its alternatives →
- 5
Me and a few friends made this design document as part of our entry to the UK CanSat competition where a high school team is required to build a probe to be launched. The probe must serve some purpose, and ours was to map the temperature and pressure of the air at different altitudes. We had the opportunity to launch it a week ago and you can find the video of our launch here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/16bsLzxjP7OWRqVvCB62cLv7QYLR... During the launch we reached 400m above sea level, and the can pulled 70gs successfully. The parachute and can stayed intact.…
2025 · drive.google.com · its alternatives →
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Lunar lander type game with computational fluid dynamics - s-macke/Interplanetary-Postal-Service
2018 · github.com · its alternatives →
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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 →
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A thrust-vectoring model rocket flight computer. Comes with all you need to keep your rocket pointing up. - AdamMarciniak/CygnusX1
2020 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 10
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 →
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2019 · reddit.com · its alternatives →
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Pilot the SpaceX Dragon 2 vehicle to the ISS!
2020 · iss-sim.spacex.com · its alternatives →
- 13IB
2022 · multiplanetary.website · its alternatives →
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Inspiring the next generation of spaceflight, interactively
2021 · its alternatives →
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First new release in 14 years, now in real-time 4K 🛩
2020 · xbox.com · its alternatives →
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- 17MS
Did this a few years ago. Seems apropos. Sources and more here: https://github.com/EngineersNeedArt/Mooncraft2000
Apr 2026 · mooncraft2000.com · its alternatives →
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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 →
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Gravity WebGL experiment in the Solar System
2016 · github.com · its alternatives →
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AR Rockets▲108Launch rockets that are cheaper than SpaceX's 🚀
2018 · play.google.com · its alternatives →
- 22
Hey HN! We are the co-founders of Elodin (https://elodin.systems/), a code-first physics simulation framework. We just open-sourced our core libraries on Github: https://github.com/elodin-sys/elodin Have you ever wondered what happens when a satellite is first placed into orbit? It turns out that often, they tumble out of control, end over end, in a miraculous fight against stability. Check out our demo here of a control system attempting to rectify this: https://app.elodin.systems/sandbox/hn/cube-sat The spacecraft does not…
2024 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 23HO
3D gravity and space Simulator. Explore and play around with the force of gravity in the context of an array of scenarios from our solar system and beyond. You can add planets, delete the Sun, change the value of the gravitational constant or simply lean back and enjoy the dazzling beauty of the pen
2018 · thehappykoala.github.io · its alternatives →
- 24AI
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!
Apr 2026 · artemis.radish.build · its alternatives →
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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 →