Have you ever wanted to be an astronaut?  Ever wanted to see what it was like for Niel and Buzz to land on the moon?  Now you can in this amazing historical space flight simulator called Reentry: An Orbital Simulator.

Right now you can learn how to fly the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo space craft, including the Lunar Module.  The game is still in early access but it's very near to 1.0 release.  The developer plans to continue updating and improving the simulator after 1.0 launch.  He said he plans to continue improving on it until at least 2.0 release.  There are plans to add other historical spacecraft as well from what I've read.

I know there is the freeware Orbiter however this simulator is much more user friendly and it has modern graphics.  It comes with interactive lessons and very well written PDF guides for each spacecraft as well as an interactive checklist system, all of which makes learning how to fly these spacecraft so much easier and more accessible to newcomers.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/882140/Reentry__An_Orbital_Simulator/

Edited November 27, 20232 yr by Kalnon

Release Date:

Nov 15, 2018

 

Update Nov. 2023

.99.

 

Pretty close to abandoned-ware...

Edited November 27, 20232 yr by Delta111

2 hours ago, Delta111 said:

Pretty close to abandoned-ware...

It's not, it has been updated constantly during these years, I bought it when it only had Mercury launches, now it has Gemini and Apollo missions, including a working Lunar Module with a working Dsky computer. It's an impressive achievement, considering it has been made by a single person.

This would have been easy to verify, by clicking the "See all updates" button on the Store page. And users' reviews are "Overwhelmingly positive".

Edited November 27, 20232 yr by virtuali

This looks really fun. I'm afraid, in my case, it would be a 'died during reentry' simulator. Jest aside, it has come a long way since last I looked at it.

I have this sim and only wished i could spend more time learning to operate the systems.

6 hours ago, virtuali said:

It's not, it has been updated constantly during these years, I bought it when it only had Mercury launches, now it has Gemini and Apollo missions, including a working Lunar Module with a working Dsky computer. It's an impressive achievement, considering it has been made by a single person.

This would have been easy to verify, by clicking the "See all updates" button on the Store page. And users' reviews are "Overwhelmingly positive".

Yeah it's definitely not abandoned, I've also seen the very regular and constant updates as well (the last one was a week ago).  The developer is extremely dedicated to this project, he is also very thorough and very meticulous in his work. He works on it just by himself, he's a one man development team so of course that means it will take a very long time to finish.

Edited November 28, 20232 yr by Kalnon

5 hours ago, flyerkg said:

I have this sim and only wished i could spend more time learning to operate the systems.

Just start slow and take your time, there is no rush, you should learn the spacecraft at your own pace.  First I recommend you begin with learning the Mercury spacecraft and only focus on that one until you have it mastered, then move up to Gemini, and lastly Apollo.  Each spacecraft is progressively more complex, Mercury being the most simple to learn.

Begin by reading the Mercury manual first, read it twice if you need to, there's no shame in that, it's a lot of information to absorb.  Then once you've read the manual, run through the Mercury lessons in the sim, also do these multiple times over to really let it sink in.  Also make sure to use the interactive checklists, it really helps you learn the procedures.

As I said it's best to pace yourself and go slowly, I promise you if you stick with it, you will figure it out in time. 

Edited November 28, 20232 yr by Kalnon

I certainly appreciate the feedback from Kalnon and hope other space fans take on this program too!

Thank you very much Kalnon 😡…now you have peeked my curiosity and I had to go look at the software, and now have this irresistible urge to buy it … and will probably spend 100 (s of) hours learning the spacecraft. This seems like the next best thing after being part of the Apollo program. 

14 hours ago, bcote689 said:

Thank you very much Kalnon 😡…now you have peeked my curiosity and I had to go look at the software, and now have this irresistible urge to buy it … and will probably spend 100 (s of) hours learning the spacecraft. This seems like the next best thing after being part of the Apollo program. 

Another thing I recommend is that you join the game's official Discord server because the Steam Discussion board is fairly inactive.  For some reason many users of this simulator prefer to use Discord.  There you can ask and get better help with any questions you have.

There's also more and more instructional and other YouTube videos popping up from users that know the spacecraft well, watching some of those can help you too.

Edit: I just wanted to add that it would be awesome if AVSIM would consider making a new forum section for this simulator.  I prefer using forums over Discord personally.

Edited November 30, 20232 yr by Kalnon