OpenRocket Dispersion

A Free Monte-Carlo Rocket flight simulator

In 2017 the MIT Rocket Team was filing it’s first Class 3 waiver with the FAA. We had international students and a small budget, precluding us from using the normal tools. We modified the open source tool OpenRocket to provide us with the dispersion plots the FAA requested. The modified .jar file is included below. Literally no warranty, implied fitness, or technical support is implied or provided. I doubt we could find the code to recompile this if we tried.

To use this tool, run the program and load in a normal .ork file. Under the simulations tab, select ‘Edit Simulation’ and select the third tab ‘Dispersion.’ If you can’t see this tab, it means you accidentally ran the normal OpenRocket executable. In this tab you can set up the monte-carlo run and execute by clicking the ‘Disperse’ button. A csv file will be saved with some key values from each simulation run. I used a python script to generate the image at the head of this page, and if I feel inspired I may edit it up and attach it here.