Free Flight — a real-scale model of the solar system

A real-scale model of the solar system, in the browser

Free Flight is a real-time, real-scale simulation of the solar system, built from scratch by Hasnain Shaikh, an aerospace engineering student at TU Delft. Nothing here is decorative: every planet is placed by solving Kepler's equation against live orbital elements, so the arrangement you fly through is the arrangement outside, right now.

Distances are true to the kilometre rather than compressed for convenience, which is the part most space visualisations quietly cheat. Earth to Mars is genuinely tens of millions of kilometres, and crossing it takes a real burn, a real coast, and a real arrival. Masses are true too, so gravity assists work because the physics works, not because a flyby was scripted.

Flight is Newtonian. Thrust accumulates, nothing damps your velocity for you, and a burn pointed the wrong way costs exactly what it should. There is no drag to hide behind and no autopilot to recover an approach you set up badly — you arrive on the trajectory you actually flew.

Controls

W and S throttle, A and D yaw, the mouse steers once the pointer is locked. M opens the system map, L the logbook, O photo mode. Warp compresses the coast phases so an interplanetary transfer fits inside a browser session.

It needs WebGL and a keyboard. If you are reading this, one of those did not come up — head back to the main site for the rest of the work, including the rocket build log and the landing simulator. Hasnain also designs and builds websites for small businesses in Dubai.