Screenshot of a Space Shuttle lift-off from Cape Canaveral

The Delta Glider in low Venusian orbit, showing the 3D Virtual Cockpit, including Multifunctional displays (MFDs) and the Heads-up Display (HUD)

Mir, a default Orbiter craft, orbiting over North Queensland, with a moonset in the background

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Orbiter

Orbiter is a closed source freeware space flight simulator for the Windows operating system created by Dr Martin Schweiger, a computer scientist at University College London. more...

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The first version was released on November 27, 2000 and is an ongoing project that has been under development ever since. The latest version is release 060929 unveiled on September 29, 2006. This release is the patch of version 060504, which unveiled on May 4, 2006.

About the simulator

Orbiter is a free space flight simulator for Windows offered to the space enthusiasts community by Martin Schweiger. Although Orbiter is not released under any Open Source license, and no code is available for public use, a number of people contribute add-ons and literature to the project. It is function-oriented, with the interface focused on maneuvering the spacecraft, rather than perspective-oriented, as in Celestia. Orbiter allows any user to explore the solar system on a number of spacecraft, both realistic, such as the Space Shuttle Atlantis, and fictional, such as the Delta-glider.

Orbiter contains the realism necessary to re-enact historical space flights while the ability to fly more futuristic ships allows the player to make timely travel around the solar system. A spacecraft's engines are defined only by the amount of thrust it puts out and amount of fuel used. This allows anything from solar sails, to conventional rocket engines, to futuristic nuclear and fusion drives to be simulated. Orbital, sub-orbital, and interplanetary travel are all supported. Docking and attachment systems allow the player to perform a docking with a space station or other spacecraft and also rendezvous with and retrieve a satellite. The player can even build a space station in orbit.

Orbiter's solar system consists of the sun and the eight planets. Pluto, asteroids, and comets are not included but can be added via add-ons. Although Orbiter contains a database of over 100,000 stars, these are for display purposes only and interstellar travel is currently not possible in Orbiter.

Along with this is a planetarium mode with three main features. Ecliptic and celestial grids can be overlaid onto the starmap along with labels of the constellations and other celestial markers. Secondly, labels indicating the location and identity of objects in the solar system, such as planets, moons, or vessels, can be activated to appear within a certain proximity based on their type. Finally, labels can be put on the celestial bodies in the solar system at certain coordinates on their surface for indicating cities, historical markers, geological formations, and other interesting sites.

Orbiter aims to be a realistic simulator rather than an arcade game. Planetary motion, gravitation effects, free space and atmospheric flight are accurately modeled. Space physics and orbital mechanics can be complicated, and the learning curve is very steep even for those familiar with flight sims. Because it uses newtonian physics, faster-than-light travel is possible without any of the adverse effects that would be experienced in real life. The limits for velocity and distance from the sun are unknown, but experiments show that the program becomes less stable during spacecraft travel at many orders of magnitude of the speed of light.