[X] My Assistant

[volcanopele]

I am looking for a freeware (I'll even go shareware if necessary) program that allows you to design the trajectory of a spacecraft. The software needs to support gravity assists, satellite systems (meaning it would allow for designs say around Jupiter, with gravity assists at the various moons), and for inputing dry and wet mass at launch and the specifics of the launch vehicle. Preferably, but not required, it would support either NAIF kernels or support a launch at some day in the future with the appropriate planetary and satellite positions.

Oh, and preferably, it works on Windows machines, but UNIX/Solaris and Macs are fine.

[nprev]

Not a useless point at all, Jim; seems to point directly to the rationale behind the apparent Catch-22 situation here.

Kepler's Laws are in the international public domain, obviously. Now, software to exploit them isn't, but irregardless it seems absurd to impose ITAR restrictions on orbit calculation software of any type...sadly, Jim's observation would appear to provide such justification.

VP, I do have an alternative suggestion: Touch bases with the amateur astronomy community. There are many serious ams out there now tracking asteroids & comets (the electronics revolution's impact has not been confined solely to improved image processing); in fact, it's a safe bet that many have written their own software for these applications. I'm certain that they'd be flattered as hell to talk to you & help you out given your position & credentials. One good place to start would be on the Sky & Telescope magazine pro-am collaboration site, http://skytonight.com/resources/proamcollab Good luck!

[EDIT] Actually, what am I thinking? You're in Tucson, right, which is pretty much the US capitol of amateur astronomy; you should be able to find someone local quite easily. Try http://www.tucsonastronomy.org/