Lunaria

You see your parking orbit and the moon's orbit on a chart. Set three dials: when to command the departure burn, how much delta-v that burn uses, and how much the capture burn needs. Because of comms lag your command fires late, so you must lead the moon by the right phase angle. Commit the plan to fly it and be graded on phasing, fuel and accuracy.

• The moon must be ahead by the correct angle the instant the engine actually fires
• A transfer is a half-ellipse: a departure burn out, a capture burn in
• An auto-solve hint shows an ideal plan if you get stuck

• Desktop: drag the three dials, then click Commit & Fly
• Phone & tablet: drag the dials and tap the buttons, touch-friendly

• Difficulty: Cadet, Pilot or Commander
• Daily shared mission or endless Practice

• Account for comms lag, command the burn before the moon reaches the ideal angle
• Match the capture burn to circularise, not under- or over-shoot
• Use the hint once to learn the ideal numbers, then beat them on fuel

Lunaria is a mission-planning game grounded in real orbital-transfer math, turning space travel into a problem of orbits and timing.

• Skills: orbital mechanics, transfer orbits, mission planning, physics math
• Best for: roughly grades 9–12 (ages 14+)
• For parents & teachers: introduces real spaceflight-planning concepts.

Setting the timing of a departure burn, its delta-v, and the size of the capture burn is a Hohmann transfer — the two-burn manoeuvre between orbits.

Making the timing a dial alongside the magnitudes is the original emphasis.

Timing is not a detail but the whole problem. A transfer must arrive where the destination will be rather than where it is, so the launch window is set by the geometry of the two orbits — and burning at the wrong moment wastes fuel no correction can recover.

Lunaria is an original mission-planning game grounded in real orbital transfer math. It's free to play in your browser with no download.

A free, original browser game on PlayPendium. No download, no install.