0.15: A cockpit to sit in

Version 0.15 and every update to it, newest first. The game shows the same notes on its main menu once per version.

0.15.8 · A tower your size

2026-10-08

• The service tower is built to your rocket’s height: a short, wide rocket no longer stands under a tower three times its size (the stock Pioneer 1’s went from 66 m to 33 m).
• Your First Rocket can no longer finish on the pad: relaunching or going back to the builder mid-flight now takes the lesson back to the launch, instead of counting the pad as your landing.
• Your First Rocket now checks that the decoupler is under the capsule. Anywhere else it would drop only the engine and leave the parachute carrying the tank.
• In the cockpit, the SAS switch now holds the heading you have when you flip it, instead of turning back to where you were when you switched it off.
• After flying through a cloud, the engine’s heat haze no longer vanishes while the drops dry off the lens.

0.15.7 · Lighter for the char

2026-10-08

• The ablator a heat shield chars away on the way down now comes off the capsule’s weight, as the real material does.

0.15.6 · Planets at their true size on the map

2026-10-08

• On the map, planets, moons and the Sun are drawn at their true size at every zoom, and anything too small to see is marked with a dot in its own colour, larger for the Sun and the giants. They no longer sit at one size and then suddenly start growing as you zoom in, and the Sun no longer swallows Earth’s orbit when zoomed far out.

0.15.5 · Honest mission endings

2026-10-08

• A mission whose last burn could not be flown, because no engine was able to push, now says it is not finished instead of announcing that the orbit is complete.

0.15.4 · A launch that was not

2026-10-08

• A craft that starts in orbit, from a tutorial or the teleport cheat, no longer has a liftoff written into its flight log, so it no longer earns the Liftoff challenge without having launched.

0.15.3 · Chutes that know the ground

2026-10-08

• Parachutes now open at their heights above the ground beneath them rather than above sea level, the way a real chute’s altimeter reads it: over high ground they no longer open late, and over a deep basin they no longer open early.

0.15.2 · Flying through cloud

2026-10-08

• Flying through a cloud now looks like it: the view goes soft, wisps stream past faster the faster you fly, and water beads on the lens and slides off for a few seconds after you come out.

0.15.1 · Chutes that wait for their speed

2026-10-08

• A parachute now waits for the speed it is built to open at, not only for its height: a drogue opens below Mach 2.5 and a main below Mach 0.9. On Earth nothing changes. On Mars a capsule is still too fast for its chutes far lower than you might expect, as real Mars landers are, so bring engines for the last few kilometres.
• Several parachutes opened together drag a little less than the same canopies would apart, as real clusters do.

0.15.0 · A cockpit to sit in

2026-10-08

• Press U in a Mk1 Capsule or Crew Cabin and you are inside it: padded walls, the windows the hull carries, couches or seats, breaker panels, the hatch and cabin lamps.
• Three live displays across the console show your attitude on a navball, your flight data and a plot of your orbit.
• The switches under them work: click Stage, SAS, SAS mode, RCS, engine cut, full throttle, map or action groups 1 to 4.
• Look round the cabin with the right mouse button: to the side walls, down to the switches and up to the windows.