Rocket Launch and Orbit Simulator
Details
- External ID
- 46557879
- Source
- HN
- Company
- —
- Product
- Rocket Launch and Orbit Simulator
- Website domain
- donutthejedi.com
- Launched
- Jan. 9, 2026
- Cohort
- —
- Upvotes
- 166
- Upvotes percentile
- 0.9538866930171278
- Tags
- —
- Fetched at
- Sept. 7, 2026, 9:25 p.m.
- Updated at
- Sept. 7, 2026, 9:25 p.m.
Description
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 / pitch programs (works well within ranges 350km to 600km) Orbital prediction and thrusting options to change your orbit. The feedback I'm looking for is: UI improvements and possible future physics implementations that I can work on.Current code and physics can be found at: https://github.com/donutTheJedi/Rocket-Launch-Simulation
Enrichment
- Theme
- space and geospatial visualization tools
- Vertical
- Education
- Function
- Dev tools
- Audience
- B2C
- AI stance
- Not AI
- Project type
- Hobby / open-source project
- Normalized one-liner
- rocket launch and orbit simulator
- Manually corrected
- False
Could you build this?
Partial While basic web games can be built with LLMs, realistic orbital mechanics, aerodynamic drag modeling, and multi-stage vehicle dynamics require careful numerical physics simulation.
What it would actually take: A browser-based physics engine using Three.js/Canvas along with custom numerical integrators (like Runge-Kutta 4th order) modeling atmospheric density layers, dynamic pressure (Max Q), gravity turns, and multi-body gravitational mechanics. The hard part is maintaining numerical stability and accurate aerodynamic/orbital conversions in real-time under variable timesteps.
Discussion
20 comments analyzed.
Competitors mentioned: KSP-KOS-PEG (orbital mechanics implementation), PEGAS - Powered Explicit Guidance Ascent System, Other orbital dynamics simulators
Concerns raised: 45-degree thrust vector creates unrealistic dynamic pressure (150 kPa vs Falcon 9's 35 kPa max), Fuel inefficient trajectory compared to real-world optimization, Using AI to write code without learning physics/programming fundamentals, Over-reliance on AI reduces portfolio interview strength, High zoom sensitivity makes UI cumbersome
Feature requests: Random star positions instead of sine/cosine patterns, Implement UPFG/PEGAS closed-loop guidance system, Improve color theme and visual design, Better user onboarding on what to learn from simulation, More intuitive zoom controls
Competitors
Other products that read as similar to this one — 80 launches clear the similarity bar, closest 8 shown.
Attention rank: #7 of 81 (itself plus its competitors, highest first — normalized so YC and Product Hunt are compared fairly).
Launched 58 days after the earliest competitor.
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- Artemis II Moon Mission Simulator in the Browser · hn · 2026-04-05 · 5 upvotes · similarity 0.56
- I built a space travel calculator using Vanilla JavaScript · hn · 2026-01-24 · 54 upvotes · similarity 0.50
- A real-time ballistic solver for moving targets under drag (C++) · hn · 2026-01-10 · 5 upvotes · similarity 0.50
- I made a flight simulator, except you're just a passenger · hn · 2026-09-14 · 441 upvotes · similarity 0.48
- DailySpace, Android app for exploring space photos and rocket launches · hn · 2026-01-14 · 7 upvotes · similarity 0.45
- SOLAR · ph · 2026-09-25 · 2 upvotes · similarity 0.44
- A gravity simulator where forces propagate at the speed of light · hn · 2026-09-03 · 6 upvotes · similarity 0.44
Other launches for this product
- No other launches for this product.
Same idea, different domain
Nobody's really built a dev tools tool for Sales yet.