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Ten years ago today, I released the first version of OpenRocket (0.9.0). It's been a great ride since. Even though my personal rocket hobby has dwindled over the years, it's still exciting to follow progress in rocketry, both large and small. It's also fun to do experiments like simulating a...

Here's a screenshot I took for the article. (The real-time simulation results are bogus, since they don't use the script doing the active control.)

I decided to test the limits of OpenRocket by simulating a full-size Saturn V rocket in it. I wrote an article on the project for our club magazine (in Finnish). The results were reasonably good, considering OpenRocket doesn't do full spherical coordinates and the rocket flew at over 20...

You can add a material from whatever material selection dropdown by selecting the last option "Custom". Select 'Add material to database' to store it for future use from the dropdown. Cheers, Sampo N.

Certainly delays are to be expected - been there, done that. I was just hoping that someone in the know might give some estimate on the schedule, when the triple-N launch could be attempted at the earliest. Is the team planning to be ready to launch immediately at 9 o'clock or a couple of...

Hi, We're leaving for our road trip next week and we'll be flying back on the 28th. We could attend NARAM on Friday, Saturday or Sunday. I guess Saturday would likely be the most interesting with the ULA launches. Or does someone have some other specific recommendations? The NARAM site says...

Hi, A flat nose cone tip will do that. The Barrowman equations assume the rocket to have a continuous body and sharp tip nose. The results should be ok though. Not all warnings are fatal, they just warn that you're doing something the Barrowman equations were not meant to cope with. Cheers...

"The same basic physics" is quite mouthful when talking about aerodynamics. Both use the Barrowman equations for basic stability computations, so those should be relatively close for "typical" rockets. Both extend the stability computations in various ways. The drag computation methods can...

FWIW - OpenRocket was originally developed on Linux. I've been using Linux pretty much exclusively since the late 90's. I was originally very delighted with XUbuntu, which was very lightweight and "just worked", but development seemed to stagnate a few years back. I switched to Linux Mint...

That's a good point. But are there any cases where lowest velocity is significantly different from apogee? On normal flights I could imagine air resistance slowing down the rocket still a bit after apogee before gravity really kicks in, but I'd doubt it to be more than some tenths of a second...

Hi, Based on the feedback on this forum Kevin has taken a shot at implementing the optimum delay column in OpenRocket. There's been a rather long debate on the developer mailing list on whether the column should display the optimum delay (time from motor burnout to apogee) or difference from...

Hi, Unfortunately that will simulate as if you had a thin plate the diameter of the phantom body tube attached at the bottom of your rocket. Air does not flow through body tubes, even though you can see through them in the 3D view. The simulation methods assume that all body tubes are...

Wow, I wasn't aware that NARAM is in Colorado. We're planning on leaving from Colorado on the 28th, so I could just make it for a day or two. Not 100% sure yet though. Thanks for the tips! Cheers, Sampo N.

Hi, The ideal way of implementing the optimum delay feature within OR: If apogee occurs before deployment: done. If deployment occurs before apogee, copy and store the simulation state, and continue the simulation as regular. After the simulation has ended, continue the copied simulation...

Hi, Me and a few friends are planinng a road trip to the States in July. Our route is approximately San Francisco - Las Vegas - Denver. Are there any (preferably high-power) launches in the area during that time? We'd be interested in attending one if it matches our itienary reasonably...

Hi, There's been some talk on the OpenRocket dev list about adding support for 3D printer formats. There's been some discussion about whether CNC milling and 3D printing could use the same export functionality. If you have experience with such matters, please chime in on the dev list (or...

Hi, Like other have said, non-commercial open source development is most often driven by personal interest. If someone is interested, they'll do it. If not, reasoning might help, pleading probably won't. Unless you're willing to pay, it's our free time you're talking about. That's why I've...

Hi, I listed a number of solutions to run Java code on iOS when this was asked the previous time. Some are specifically built so that you write the program logic in Java and the UI in ObjC (which is essentially how the Android version works). Porting is probably even easier now that the...

Hi, OR supports only radial fins. If I were designing a rocket with a "wing" tangent with the body tube, I'd simulate it as regular fins, but with the height reduced by 3/4 - 1 times the body radius, because the body "shadows" part of the wing. This should give a conservative estimate for the...

Hi, Actually there are a few solutions that allow writing iOS application in Java, which compile to native code. With just a quick googling I found these: https://www.robovm.org/ https://code.google.com/p/j2objc/ https://www.codenameone.com...