OpenRocket 22.02.beta.05

[Joe Pfeiffer]

The OpenRocket team is very excited to announce that the new version of OpenRocket is at long last available for everyone to try. For now this is a public beta, which means that there are known issues still to be worked out before the final release. Nonetheless, the current version is stable and usable enough for most folks to start using it full-time.

After a short summer break, Public Beta 5 is now available, featuring a whole swath of UI improvements along with a couple of new features and the usual assortment of bug fixes and tweaks.

IMPORTANT SUB-ANNOUNCEMENT: The OpenRocket project is now officially accepting donations to fund our operations. We don’t need much, but we will be incurring expenses going forward for code signing, which will eliminate the need to disable security when installing and running. For full details, head over to https://openrocket.info/donate.html

Download: https://openrocket.info/downloads.html?vers=22.02.beta.05
Full Release notes: https://openrocket.info/release_notes.html (see also the following post)

Please keep those bug reports and suggestions coming to this thread or straight to https://github.com/openrocket/openrocket/issues.

Here are the major new features:

Pods!
Drop-off boosters!
Rail buttons!
Attach freeform fins to nose cones and transitions!
Coefficient of Drag override!
Better tube fin support!
Multiple-component editing!
Contextual menus!
Dave Cook’s fantastic rocket component library now included!

…plus endless smaller things to make day-to-day use more enjoyable.

The beta is being released in both packaged form and as a plain JAR file (for use with Java 11 or 17, but please note that there are problems with Java 17) at the link provided above. We strongly recommend the packaged installers for most folks.

Updated builds will be made available periodically during the beta period. OpenRocket can check for updates either automatically at startup, or manually. The settings for this feature are found at: Edit > Preferences > General.

This update has taken a long effort from a lot of people. Please give it a try, and let us know what you think. We hope to get back on a more regular release schedule (!) going forward.

Thanks again for your continued support!