via Hackaday: Lunar Lander Game Asks You to Write a Simple Autopilot

Everyone likes a good lunar landing simulator, and [Dominic Doty] wrote a fun take on the idea: your goal is to write an autopilot controller to manage the landing. Try it out!

Virtual landers are far cheaper than real ones, thank goodness.

[Dominic] was inspired in part by this simple rocket landing game which is very much an exercise in reflex and intuition, not to mention being much faster-paced than the classic 1979 video game (which you can also play in your browser here.)

[Dominic]’s version has a similar classic look to the original, but embraces a more thoughtful approach. In it, one uses plain JavaScript to try to minimize the lander’s angle, velocity, and angular velocity in order to land safely on the generated terrain.

Want to see if you have the right stuff? Here’s a direct link to Lunar Pilot. Don’t get discouraged if you don’t succeed right away, though. Moon landings have had plenty of failures, and are actually very hard.

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