RocketScope Download for Mac

Watch it fly before it flies.

A Mac app that shows your rocket in 3D: live from the flight computer on your desk, or flying your own OpenRocket design off the pad, through apogee and down under its chute.

Download RocketScope Free. 1.3 MB disk image, macOS 13 or later.

The flight, the way it will happen

Drop in an OpenRocket file and RocketScope flies that exact rocket on its real motor thrust curve, with the mass, centre of pressure and drag OpenRocket worked out for it. It lands within a few percent of OpenRocket's own apogee, and you get to watch it.

The HYPER-TVC rocket leaving the pad with a bright exhaust plume.
Boost. The plume grows and shrinks with the motor's measured thrust.
The rocket seen from the ground, high in the sky, with its trail curving over.
Ground camera. Stand 15 m from the pad and track it with a zoom lens.
The rocket coloured by surface pressure from a CFD solution, red at the nose tip.
Real pressure. Open an Airflow CFD case and its surface pressure is painted on, nose stagnation to fin suction.
164 mRocketScope's apogee for HYPER-TVC on an F37W. OpenRocket says 159.9 m.
200 Hzlive attitude from an ESP32 flight computer over USB or Wi-Fi.
194,303CFD faces mapped onto the model from a single solved case.

Bring your own rocket

Each tool does the part it is best at. RocketScope puts them in one place.

  1. Drop in your CAD

    Export an STL or OBJ from Fusion and drop it on the window. That is the model you will see fly.

  2. Drop in the .ork

    Run one simulation in OpenRocket, save, and drop the file on top. Your CAD stays; the motor, mass and stability come from OpenRocket.

  3. Add the CFD

    View, Open Airflow Case. The real drag replaces the estimate, and the trust grade and findings show next to the pressure scale.

Moves like Fusion

Middle-drag to pan, Shift and middle-drag to orbit, scroll to zoom at the cursor. On a trackpad: two fingers pan, Shift and two fingers orbit, pinch to zoom. C switches between the follow camera, the ground camera and a free view.

Opening it the first time

RocketScope is signed by STUHI but is not yet notarised by Apple, so macOS asks you to confirm it once. After that it opens normally.

  1. Open the disk image and drag RocketScope into Applications.
  2. In Applications, Control-click RocketScope and choose Open.
  3. Choose Open again in the dialog. If there is no Open button, go to System Settings, Privacy & Security, and click Open Anyway.