OpenRocket
| OpenRocket | |
|---|---|
 | |
 OpenRocket 22.02 home screen | |
| Original author | Sampo Niskanen |
| Developer | OpenRocket development team |
| Release | 2009 |
| Stable release | 24.12
/ 27 July 2025 |
| Written in | Java |
| Operating system | Linux, macOS, Windows |
| Type | Model rocket design and flight simulation |
| License | GPL-3.0 |
| Website | openrocket |
| Repository | github |
OpenRocket is a free and open-source application for designing model rockets and simulating their flight. The software provides a component-based rocket design environment together with aerodynamic analysis, stability calculations and flight simulation.[1] It is written in Java and is available for Windows, macOS and Linux.[1]
OpenRocket was originally developed by Sampo Niskanen as part of his 2009 master's thesis at the Helsinki University of Technology.[2]
History
[edit]OpenRocket originated from Niskanen's master's thesis, which investigated methods for calculating the aerodynamic properties and flight trajectories of model rockets and implemented these methods in an open-source software application.[2] The work was based in part on the aerodynamic methods developed by James Barrowman, with extensions for effects including large angles of attack and free-form fins. The thesis also described atmospheric modelling and a six-degree-of-freedom flight simulation.[2]
Development has continued as an open-source project. The software is currently released under the GNU General Public License.[3]
Design and simulation
[edit]OpenRocket allows rockets to be constructed from components including nose cones, body tubes, fins, internal components, recovery devices and rocket motors. As a design is modified, the program calculates quantities such as the rocket's center of gravity and center of pressure.[1]
The program can analyse the contribution of individual components to aerodynamic properties including stability, drag and roll. It can also simulate a complete flight under user-defined atmospheric and launch conditions.[1] Its simulation model uses empirical aerodynamic methods based on the geometry of the rocket.[4]
Coverage and use
[edit]In 2013, Linux Journal published a detailed article by Joey Bernard demonstrating the use of OpenRocket for designing, analysing, optimizing and simulating model rockets.[1] In 2018, issue 12 of HackSpace magazine included a tutorial by Jo Hinchliffe on designing and simulating a model rocket using OpenRocket.[5]
OpenRocket has also been examined in engineering research. Brown et al. compared an OpenRocket simulation of a student-built rocket with measured flight data and with a rigid-body dynamics simulation using aerodynamic coefficients derived from wind-tunnel and computational-fluid-dynamics testing.[4]
In 2025, Jacob Schrum and Cody Crosby used OpenRocket as the simulation environment in a study applying quality-diversity algorithms to model-rocket design. Designs generated in the study were subsequently manufactured and launched, allowing the researchers to examine differences between simulated and real-world behaviour.[6]
See also
[edit]References
[edit]- 1 2 3 4 5 Bernard, Joey (18 March 2013). "Design Your Own Rocket". Linux Journal.
- 1 2 3 Niskanen, Sampo (2009). Development of an Open Source model rocket simulation software (Master's thesis). Helsinki University of Technology.
- ↑ Eerland, Willem J.; Box, Simon; Sóbester, András (21 February 2017). "Cambridge Rocketry Simulator – A Stochastic Six-Degrees-of-Freedom Rocket Flight Simulator". Journal of Open Research Software. 5 (5). doi:10.5334/jors.137. ISSN 2049-9647.
- 1 2 Brown, William; Wiesneth, Michael; Faust, Thomas; Huynh, Nghia; Montalvo, Carlos; Lino, Kent; Tindell, Andrew (2019). "Measured and simulated analysis of a model rocket". Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Part G: Journal of Aerospace Engineering. 233 (4): 1397–1411. doi:10.1177/0954410017752730.
- ↑ Hinchliffe, Jo (November 2018). "Design your own rocket". HackSpace. No. 12. Raspberry Pi Ltd.
- ↑ Schrum, Jacob; Crosby, Cody (2025). "A Quality Diversity Approach to Evolving Model Rockets". Proceedings of the Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference. GECCO '25. pp. 1471–1479. arXiv:2504.02177. doi:10.1145/3712256.3726338.