Orbiter (simulator)

Orbiter Space Flight Simulator
Developer(s)Dr. Martin Schweiger
Initial release27 November 2000; 23 years ago (2000-11-27)
Repositorygithub.com/mschweiger/orbiter
Written inC++[1]
Operating systemWindows Vista and later
Size2.42 GB
Available inEnglish
TypeSimulation
LicenseMIT license
Websiteorbit.medphys.ucl.ac.uk

Orbiter is a space flight simulator program developed to simulate spaceflight using realistic Newtonian physics. The simulator was released on 27 November 2000;[2] the latest edition, labeled "Orbiter 2016", was released on 30 August 2016, the first new version of the simulator since 2010.[3] On 27 July 2021, Dr Schweiger announced to the Orbiter Community that Orbiter is being published under open source MIT license.[4]

Orbiter was developed by Martin Schweiger, a senior research fellow in the computer science department at University College London,[5] who felt that space flight simulators at the time were lacking in realistic physics-based flight models, and decided to write a simulator that made learning physics concepts enjoyable.[6] It has been used as a teaching aid in classrooms,[6] and a community of add-on developers have created a multitude of add-ons to allow users to fly assorted real and fictional spacecraft and add new planets or planetary systems.[7][8]

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference FAQ was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ "ORBITER Change Log". 10 December 2005. Archived from the original on 10 December 2005. Retrieved 30 August 2020.
  3. ^ http://orbit.medphys.ucl.ac.uk/press/pressrelease2016.pdf [bare URL PDF]
  4. ^ "Orbiter is now open source". Orbiter-forum.com. Dr. Martin Schweiger. 27 July 2021. Retrieved 20 October 2022.
  5. ^ Martin Schweiger
  6. ^ a b "Techhaze interview with Martin Schweiger". Archived from the original on 17 May 2013. Retrieved 5 August 2010.
  7. ^ "The Space Review". Retrieved 5 August 2010.
  8. ^ "David Kluemper's Simulators". Archived from the original on 3 March 2016. Retrieved 7 August 2010.