Just a heads up to sim fans of an up-and-coming early access title.

Do you have what it takes to be an astronaut? https://store.steampowered.com/app/882140/Reentry__An_Orbital_Simulator/

Reentry is a realistic space flight simulator based on NASA's space programs; from the first American human spaceflight in Project Mercury, the rendezvous and EVAs of Project Gemini to the Moon landing in Project Apollo.

Reentry is a space flight simulator based on real life spacecrafts. You create a new astronaut, gain levels and experience for every move you make by completing missions in space. You will have access to missions similar to what happened in real life, or fictional missions designed to challenge you as an astronaut.

Spacecrafts are highly complicated machines with the primary task of exploring and understanding what's outside the atmosphere of Earth, while keeping the astronauts alive for long periods. This is achieved by hundreds of individual systems and backup systems working together. With the help from the in-game Space Flight Academy, the provided flight manual for each spacecraft, and checklists, you will learn how to fly and operate these machines, and explore space in a high resolution and realistic environment.

Control almost every system like the real astronauts, see the sunset and sunrise while orbiting orbiting Earth with speeds exceeding 25,500 ft/s. Explore the surface of Earth and the Moon with high resolution textures, or simply enjoy the solitude of being in space.

Imagine the final few seconds before launching into space. You are sitting on top of a 111 meter high rocket, looking at the instruments of a spaceship about to leave the oasis we call Earth. The engines are igniting, mechanical systems are clinging below you, while thousands of gallons of fuel is pumping through the systems. The loud roar of the five F1 engines are producing close to 8,000,000 pounds of thrust, violently shaking the cockpit and lifting 3 million kg off the pad. The launch pad tower is slowly moving away from you while the engines are balancing the rocket like a skyscraper on a needle. Sophisticated engineers has created the systems that will safely accelerate you to 25,500 ft/s, into a free fall orbit, with the Moon as the destination.

Welcome to Reentry, an orbital simulator.

 

 

Thank you so much for the HU! Seems already very interesting!

How does it compare to KSP? That's probably the gold standard right now in this space.

Cheers!

 

1 hour ago, Luke said:

How does it compare to KSP? That's probably the gold standard right now in this space.

Cheers!

 

I don't think it's going to be nearly as accessible to a general audience. While there is a lot of in-depth training, this seems to be in the end much more pointed towards a hardcore button pressing audience.

During the Apollo missions for instance, The Sim seems to be running an emulation of the actual software used to navigate during the mission

1 hour ago, Luke said:

How does it compare to KSP? That's probably the gold standard right now in this space.

Well... sort of. Kerbal Space Program is certainly the most fun sandbox space simulator. I've had a blast playing it, although didn't get much further than rendezvous and Mun landing/return (with lots of dead or stranded Kerbals along the way), But it's not exactly an accurate simulation. It takes many liberties to make it easier for a trial-and-error user experience. For example:

* Home planet is much smaller than Earth, like 10 times smaller, which reduces time to orbit, but also needs kludges like ultra-heavy dry tanks to encourage staging.

* Single body gravity, no Lagrange points.

* They added re-entry heating, but it's unrealistic (compromised due to small planet and atmosphere).

Lots of other things that keep it from being a truly accurate simulation. KSP is still a hoot to play, and probably the best way to self-educate about orbital mechanics and rocketry-based space flight.

For accurate simulation, the gold standard is probably Orbiter, which has been around for a while. It's been a while since I looked at it, but I think it's pretty good for dry, technical simulation.

It will be interesting to see where this new sim fits in. Looks like they're going for ultra-realism, especially with flight systems (all those panel switches modeled? Egad!). Orbiter hasn't been updated since 2016, so there is probably room in the space nerd market for something like this.

If you are more Vr oriented, you could also try this: There is a free demo

 

On 1/3/2019 at 12:06 PM, HiFlyer said:

If you are more Vr oriented, you could also try this: There is a free demo

 

I tried out the demo and was very impressed, found it very immersive although the demo does not go all the way to splashdown.  I do not have VR but clicking in the virtual cockpit was realistic.  I'd only get the full program if they included all the Mercury flights from takeoff to touchdown, I am unclear if they will do that.  It is a Steam program and I like Steam's program management. I do not need all the bells and whistles, just something to get me into orbit with a view outside.

John