Apollo Landing Simulation (2022)

An interactive simulation game solo-developed by Dylan Bassett

Dev Synopsis

My interest in spaceflight history led me to make an Apollo lunar landing simulation in Unreal Engine 5. The purpose of this was to inform more people about the process and stages of a lunar landing. While not entirely physically accurate, the simulation is fairly historically accurate, save for the fact that Apollo never landed in Copernicus Crater.

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I researched the lunar landings and watched the numerous videos from the LEM cockpit that show the landings being performed. The simulation includes various computer programs (P63, P64, etc) that were used during Apollo landings, at their respective stages of flight.

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While you could follow a realistic landing, you could also take manual control and fly around (and likely crash). All Apollo landings were flown on auto-pilot up until a few hundred feet above the ground, afterwhich the commander would take manual control. This also happens in the simulation, and lets the user manually control the thrust and attitude of the LEM. That's not to say the rest of the experience is on total auto-pilot -- just before manual control is assumed, the pilot can input various auto-pilot corrective manuevers. For example, the pilot can tell the computer to reorient slightly to the left or right, and the auto-pilot will adjust.

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All thrust, attitude changes, and manuevers are driven by real physics.