realistic space flight simulator iOS

devGirl

Hey everyone,

I've been looking for a space flight simulator to play around with that simulates real physic, or at least as much as possible...and I came across http://www.space-simulator.com the other day.

They say the physics and the orbital mechanics is 'real', but I'm no expert so how can I tell if it really is based on real physics or if it's just clever editing? Any ideas?

Thanks,

mfb

Looks a bit like the orbiter.

Concerning orbital mechanics: The real physics (well, Newtonian mechanics) is the easiest way to implement that, so I would assume a realistic physics there.
Atmospheric drag and similar issues are more problematic, you have to use some approximations there to keep calculations simple.
A clever model will be so close to reality that you cannot see the difference unless you get access to the source code.

Ideas how to check orbital mechanics:
- Fly in an orbit around sun far away from planets, compare orbital period, velocity and so on to real orbits (test of two-body mechanics and the used numerical methods in general)
- Fly to a lagrangian point, see if it works like the real points (test of influences of 2 objects at the same time)