FAQ
Short answers to the questions the game raises, each with the page that explains. The list grows with the manual.
Money and progress
Why won't my rocket fly?
One of three things. Your credits do not cover the rocket's price, which is charged when its first engine lights. Or the rocket is heavier or taller than your Launch Pad allows, and the hangar's readout says so. Or a pod aboard has no astronaut in it. See The Space Center for the pad's limits and the Launch Pad's levels.
What does a launch cost?
The rocket's price: every part's cost added up, shown as Cost in the hangar's top strip. Standing on the pad is free. It is charged the moment the first stage fires, once per launch. See Your first flight.
Do I get anything back?
Yes, if the rocket comes home whole. A rocket standing still on the ground can be recovered from the flight menu, and every part still aboard is refunded. A stage you dropped on the way is not aboard, and a crash refunds nothing. See Your first flight.
How do I keep earning discovery once the achievements are gone?
Measure places you have not measured. The first time an instrument reads a given place — a world, a band of altitude, and on the ground the biome you are in — you are paid for it, and there are hundreds of them across the system. See Science and readings.
I took another reading in the same spot and got nothing. Why?
A place pays once per instrument. The second reading is still filed in your log, but the discovery was for being there first. Fly higher, land somewhere else, or bring the other instrument. See Science and readings.
Does my scientist make a new place pay more?
No. A scientist raises what a reading achievement pays; a place is worth the same whoever is aboard, because it pays for the flight getting there. See The Meek.
What is discovery for?
Tech nodes. Credits buy launches, buildings and crew; discovery buys the nodes on the tech tree, and a node is what puts new parts in the palette. Both come from achievements and from contracts. See The Space Center.
Does upgrading Earth's Launch Pad upgrade the Moon's too?
No. Each world's pad has a level of its own, paid for on its own. The Research Centre, the Administration, the Astronaut Center and the Comm Station stand once, on Earth, for your whole game. See The Space Center.
Why is there no Comm Station on the Moon?
There is one home station and it is on Earth. Opening a world founds a Launch Pad there and no dish, so everything out of Earth's sight is reached through relay satellites of your own — which is the reason to build a network at all. See Communications and Keep a probe in contact.
Why can't I launch from the Moon or Mars?
A world gets a Launch Pad when you buy the tech node that opens it, not when you land there. Until then the hangar's Fly button goes straight to Earth. See The Space Center.
Building
How do I get a part out of the palette?
Tap a category tab to open the parts drawer, then pull a part sideways out of the drawer onto the canvas. A vertical drag scrolls the list instead, and a long press opens the part's info card. See Building a rocket.
Why does my part snap somewhere I did not want?
Parts join at their attachment points, and a part let go near one snaps to the nearest that fits. Drag it a little further from the point you do not want, or drop it on empty canvas and try again. See Building a rocket.
How do I make a fuel tank longer?
Tap the tank and move the Length slider on its sheet. Mass and capacity follow the length. See Resize a tank.
How do I put a fin on both sides at once?
Mirror it. The two fins are then linked, and moving one moves the other. See Mirror a part.
What does the Stages list do?
It is the order things fire in flight. Each tap of STAGE runs the next entry: engines ignite, separators let go, a parachute deploys or is cut. See Staging.
Flying
The throttle is up but nothing happens.
On the pad the throttle does nothing until the first stage has fired. Tap STAGE; the engine lights and the throttle jumps to full on its own. See Your first flight.
My parachute tore off.
It opened too fast, too low in thick air. Open it once the rocket is falling and still high, or wait for the air to slow it. See Your first flight.
There is no RECOVER in the menu.
The ship is still moving, or it is in pieces. RECOVER appears only while a whole ship stands still on the ground. See Your first flight.
Where did my dropped stage go?
It kept flying. A separated stage is a ship with nobody at the controls: a lit booster burns until it is spent, a stage with a chute keeps dragging, and anything falling breaks where it lands. See Staging.
Why does the engine push harder in space?
Air presses on the bell. Every engine is quoted as a range, sea level to vacuum, and the info card shows both ends. See Air, heat and speed.
My part exploded with no warning.
It got too hot. Every part has its own temperature limit on its card, and a wing's is far lower than a tank's. Slow down before the air thickens, or put a heat shield in front. See Air, heat and speed.
Why doesn't my orbit change while I coast?
Because nothing pushes the ship. An orbit changes only under thrust; between burns it repeats itself exactly. See Orbits.
What is the ring around my orbit on the map?
A maneuver node being placed. Hold on the orbit line until the ring fills, then drag the node's handles to plan a burn. See Plan a maneuver node.
Why was my ship gone when I came back?
The world kept going while the app was closed. A ship coasting in orbit was simply moved along it. A ship left in the air, or under thrust, was lost after a short grace. See Orbits.
Can I fly the booster I just dropped?
Only if it carries a pod or a Sat Controller. Then a switch button appears and you may take it over; without a command part it is debris. See Switch to a dropped stage.
Why did my rocket break on landing?
The part that met the ground was going faster than its own impact limit. Land on legs or a shield, under a canopy, and slowly. See Landing and recovery.
Why can't I speed up time?
Everyone flies in the same solar system on the same clock, and no player can push it forward. Time warp exists only in sandbox, which is your own world and spends and earns nothing. See Install and sign in.
The tech tree and achievements
Where do I find the tech tree?
Behind the Research Centre. Tap Center in the hangar, tap the Research Centre on Earth's strip, then Open tech tree on its sheet. See The tech tree.
Why is a tech node greyed out?
One of four reasons, and the line under its card names the one: you do not own a node it requires, it wants an achievement you have not earned, its whole tier is closed until your Research Centre is extended, or you are short of the price. See Buy a tech node.
How do I open the next tier of the tech tree?
Extend the Research Centre. Tapping any node in a closed tier turns the card's button into that extension, priced and bought right there, so you never have to leave the tree. See the Research Centre's levels.
The Lunar Pad node won't sell to me.
It waits for a feat, not just for money. You have to land on the Moon once before the Unlock button will tap, and the Mars Pad node waits for a landing on Mars the same way. Both are also priced in credits rather than discovery. See the tech tree reference.
Do achievements pay every time I do the thing?
No. Each one pays once, for the life of your account. That is why the far ones pay so much: the whole reward for landing on Mars arrives in a single go. See Achievements.
What are the hidden achievements?
Seventeen feats the game will not describe until you have done one. The sheet counts them into one row at the bottom and says nothing more, and neither does this manual. See the achievements reference.
I earned an achievement offline. Where is the reward?
Waiting. The row shows "reward pending" until the game reaches your account again, and it is paid then. Nothing is lost. A flight in sandbox is different: it earns no achievement at all. See Achievements.
Instruments and readings
My instrument says "no power".
The ship had no charge left to pay for the reading, so nothing was measured and nothing was filed. Every reading costs electricity: 0.2 u for the Thermometer, 0.3 u for the Barometer. Add a battery, or wait for a solar panel to put some back. See Science readings.
I took the same reading again and got nothing.
A reading pays through an achievement, and an achievement pays once, ever. The second temperature reading at the same height earns nothing. Go somewhere you have not measured, or measure something else there. See Science readings.
Where do my readings go?
Into a log kept under your player id, so it is the same on every phone you play on. Open it from the hangar: tap the credits chip, then Readings. See Take a reading.
Is a scientist worth hiring?
If you fly instruments, yes. With a scientist in a seat, every reading achievement pays 10 % more credits and discovery for each point of their science, and their science grows every time you bring them home from a flight that filed one. See Science readings.
Can I refuel a ship in orbit?
Not out of nothing. Fuel and thruster propellant only move through joints that carry them, and no part makes more. Dock a tanker to the ship and the two become one, and then its tanks are yours. Electricity is the exception: a solar panel makes more of it whenever it is in sunlight. See Resources.
Why is my parked ship losing electricity?
A pod, a capsule or a probe core draws a trickle all the time to stay awake, and antennas draw more. The flight readout shows the net rate in brackets beside the level. Give anything that has to sit in orbit a solar panel or a bigger battery. See Resources.
Contracts
How do I keep earning credits once the easy achievements are gone?
Take contracts. A company pays an advance when you sign and a reward when you meet its goals, and the board refills for as long as you keep flying. See Contracts.
Which contracts are worth taking for the money?
The ones marked TRANSPORT. Those carry something for a client — a package, a satellite, a passenger — they pay the best of their tier, and unlike the part tests they never stop being offered. Two of the board's ten offers are kept for them, so there is nearly always one there. See Carrying work.
A freight job says "recover the ship". Is landing not enough?
No. Landing puts the ship on the ground; recovering it is the RECOVER chip in the flight menu, which ends the flight and sends the ship home. That is what the client is paying for, and it also refunds every part still aboard. See Contracts.
Why is the Accept button greyed out?
Every slot is taken, or you are in sandbox. The Administration's level is how many contracts you may hold at once, three at level 1, and the amber line under the board's title says which is stopping you. See the contracts reference.
Can I take a contract while I am already flying?
No. Goals are counted from the launch, so a contract has to be signed before the rocket leaves the pad. The board you can open in flight is read-only and shows only what is already under way. See See your contracts in flight.
What happens if I run out of time?
The contract fails: the advance comes back out of your credits with a tenth of it on top, and the row moves into the recent list with a ✕. Nothing else is lost. See Contracts.
Is dropping a contract cheaper than letting it expire?
No. Giving one up costs exactly what missing the deadline costs. All it buys is the wait and the free slot on the board. See Give up a contract.
A contract I liked has stopped appearing. Why?
Most flight tests are asked once. Accepting one is what decides whether that company ever offers it again, and for the one-off jobs it usually does not. The steady work, the kind that carries passengers or brings a capsule home, always comes back. See the contracts reference.
Who are the people that appeared on my crew roster?
Passengers from a tourist run. Accepting that kind of contract hands them to you free, they take no room at the Astronaut Center, and they go home when the contract ends. Seat them in a Crew Capsule beside an astronaut. See Contracts.
Your crew
The hangar says "Seat an astronaut in the Command Pod".
The pod is empty, or the only person in it is not an astronaut. Only the astronaut trade flies a ship. Tap the pod, find the Crew row on its sheet, and tap a seat button until an astronaut is in it. See Seat crew on a pod.
Where do I hire crew?
At the Astronaut Center. Tap Center in the hangar, tap the building on the strip, then Open the Meek, then the Recruit tab. See Recruit a Meek.
Do the Meek cost anything after I hire them?
No. The hire is the only credits a Meek ever costs. Flying them is free, and there is no wage. What they cost you is the risk of losing them. See The Meek.
My controls went dead in the middle of a burn.
Your pilot blacked out. Every Meek stays awake through a load of 4 G plus 0.6 G per point of their G-tolerance, and three seconds past it they are out. While the pilot is under, the throttle freezes, the turn controls read zero and nothing stages. They come to five seconds after the load drops back under. See The Meek.
Why is the screen going dark at the edges?
Your pilot is greying out. The world starts to close in from two G under their limit and is black but for a trace once they are out. Every instrument stays readable throughout. Ease the throttle back. See Read the crew chip.
My crew died in a crash. Can I get them back?
No. They go to the Lost tab at the Astronaut Center with how and where it happened, and nothing brings them back. Leaving a flight while the ship is still in the air loses everyone aboard the same way. The recruit board always carries a raw astronaut so you can replace a lost pilot. See The Meek.
How do I make a Meek better at their job?
Fly them and bring them home. Stats move only on a recovery: a crash, a terminated flight or a ship abandoned in the air grows nobody. Nerve grows for everyone aboard, piloting for whoever held the controls, G-tolerance for a hard flight or a long one. See Crew.
Who are the tourists that appeared on my roster?
Passengers a contract lent you. They cost nothing, they ride outside the number of Meek your Astronaut Center holds, they have no Dismiss button, and they leave when the contract ends. They still need a seat beside an astronaut, and a recovery is what gets them off the ship. See Contracts.
How long does the food last?
The crew chip in flight says, in days, for the whole ship. Only filled seats eat, and food travels the joints, so a cabin eats out of the pod's larder as readily as its own. Under a day left and the chip turns amber and reads HUNGRY; run it dry and everyone eating from it is lost. See Read the crew chip.
Power, contact and instruments
My probe's controls went dead and nobody is blacked out.
You lost the link. An uncrewed ship is flown by radio, so with no contact there is no steering, no throttle, no staging and no tapping a part. A burn already running keeps running. The chip in the top left says why, and everything comes back the moment the ship is in view again. See Communications.
Why does my crewed rocket have no radio chip?
Because it does not need one. A pod with an astronaut in it answers the hand on its stick, so nothing about contact can go wrong and there is nothing to show. Only a ship whose every command part is empty flies by radio. See Communications.
My antenna says its range is 50 Mm, so why did I lose contact at 20 Mm?
A range is not how far a part reaches. Two aerials reach the square root of their two ratings multiplied together, so what you get depends on the dish at the other end as well. Every antenna's card carries the answer against a new Comm Station on its VIA L1 STATION row. See Communications.
What is the difference between the CW-1 Whip and the CR-1 Relay Whip?
The role, not the reach. Both are rated the same. The relay also carries other ships' commands through it, which is what lets a satellite hold up a chain; a plain antenna only ever flies its own ship. See Parts: Comms.
How do I fly a probe on the far side of a world?
Put a relay of your own somewhere that can see both ends. A world's solid body blocks a radio path outright, so the fix is height and geometry, not a bigger antenna. A probe network builds one.
The chip says NO ANTENNA but I fitted a dish.
A dish is folded in its housing when it leaves the hangar, and folded it is worth nothing. Tap it and tap Deploy, or put it in a stage so it opens on its own. A whip has no latch and never needs this. See Keep a probe in contact.
Do I have to point my solar panels at the sun?
No. Which way a panel faces never matters. All that counts is how much sunlight reaches the ship, so a panel makes its full rated figure in the open and nothing at all in a world's shadow. See Electricity.
My solar panel exploded and nothing hit it.
An open panel is far weaker than a folded one: the SP-1 takes 3 g out where it takes 20 g stowed, and its skin gives out at 800 K instead of 2600 K. Deploying during a burn or an ascent, or coming back into air with the wings out, is what breaks it. See Deploy a solar panel.
Where do I put the battery so it powers the right part?
Anywhere. Electricity runs along every joint on the ship, so any battery feeds any part and any panel charges all of them. Put it where the ship balances. See Electricity.
Shells, stages and docking
My boosters keep hitting the rocket after I drop them.
The Decoupler's push is small, and an empty case in the airstream swings back into the stage it left. Bolt a Separation Motor high on each booster's outer flank and stage it with the Decoupler: one second of solid thrust throws the booster outward and back. See Throw a booster clear.
My fairing broke up the moment I launched.
Something inside it was standing through the skin. The fit is judged against the shell's taper, not its widest point, and the hangar warns you before you fly: a line under the ship's mass names the part that is outside the fairing. Widen a ring, lengthen the shell, or move the payload down. See the Payload Fairing.
Nothing happens when I tap the instrument in my payload bay.
The doors are shut, and a shut door covers what is behind it. Tap the bay itself, choose Open doors, and the cargo answers a tap once the leaves are clear. See Open a payload bay.
Do I have to wait for orbit to open a payload bay?
No. The doors work on the pad as readily as in space, and they stay however you leave them, so a satellite abandoned with its bay open is found open. See Open a payload bay.
How do I mark another ship as my target?
Open the flight's map, tap the ship to bring up its card, and tap TARGET. The button only appears while you are flying. See Rendezvous and docking.
My two ships touched but nothing docked.
All four latch conditions have to hold at once: within 0.6 m, closing under 0.5 m/s, pointing into each other inside 30 °, and not turning against each other. Steady both ships and come in slower. See Rendezvous and docking.
Can I join two docking ports in the hangar?
Yes, and that is the point of doing it: a joint built on the ground can be cut in flight, so a lander can be bolted to a transfer stage and undocked when it is time to go down. A port's face takes nothing but another port. See the Docking Port.
The booster I dropped flew into my rocket.
It was still burning when it let go, and a dropped stage has no steering to turn it away. Debris is solid and a hard enough hit breaks what it strikes. Cut the throttle before you stage. See Debris and dropped stages.
There is a ship called DEBRIS on my map. What is it?
A stage you dropped that ended up coasting in space. Anything that stops being pushed above the air gets an entry of its own in the world, named after the ship it came off. It keeps orbiting until its path meets the air or the ground. See Debris and dropped stages.
The worlds
How many worlds are there?
Twenty-nine bodies: the Sun, eleven worlds going round it, and seventeen moons going round those. Every one of the 28 worlds and moons has ground your ship can reach and stand on. See the Worlds reference.
Why do the planets have such odd names?
Because only the shape of the system is borrowed, not the names. The planets sit in the same order at the same relative distances as the real ones, and each world's entry in the reference names the real planet it stands for. Earth, the Moon and Mars kept theirs. See The solar system.
Can I land on any world?
Yes. Every world and moon has a surface, and none of them is out of bounds. What is restricted is taking off again: pads stand on Earth, the Moon and Mars only. The Sun is the one exception, and falling into it is not a landing. See the Worlds reference.
Why is my parachute useless out there?
Because most worlds have no air. Nineteen of the 28 have no atmosphere at all, so there is nothing for a canopy to catch and the whole descent is flown on the engine and taken on the landing legs. See The solar system.
Where should I go after the Moon?
Mars. It is the next rung up and the only other world you can ever launch from: landing there costs 6,048 m/s from Earth's pad against the Moon landing's 4,863. See what each destination costs.
Is the outer system much harder than Mars?
Not in fuel. The burn that throws a ship out of Earth's orbit does most of the work whichever way it is aimed, so every planet past the belt sits within a thousand metres a second of every other. What grows with distance is the time the crossing takes and how far your radio has to reach. See what each destination costs.
My probe at the edge of the system has no signal.
It is out of range. The strongest dish and the strongest Comm Station each reach 500.00 Gm, which is past Squanch's orbit but short of Pluto's. Park a relay where the geometry helps, or send a crew, who need no link at all. See Pluto's entry.
Can I fly to the Sun?
You already do. Every trip between planets is a fall around the Sun between one world's sphere of influence and the next, and reaching that state pays an achievement of its own. You never land on it and it is never offered as a launch site. See the Sun's entry.
The account
Does my progress follow me to another phone?
Yes. Everything is kept under your player id: credits, discovery, tech, buildings, crew and the ship library. Type the same id on the other phone. See Install and sign in.
What works offline?
The hangar and flying. Nothing is charged or banked until the game reaches the shared world again. See Install and sign in.
How long can I leave a rocket flying while I look at something else?
About half a minute. A ship still in the air, under thrust or tumbling is flown on for you through a gap of up to 30 seconds, and lost past that. A ship coasting above the air or parked on the ground keeps for as long as you like. See The shared world and its clock.
The game closed itself in the middle of a flight. Do I have to start over?
No. The flight writes itself down every ten seconds and again the moment the app leaves the screen, so opening the game hands you straight back to the ship, moved along by however much time passed. See The shared world and its clock.
Can I park a ship in orbit and come back to it next week?
Yes, as long as the orbit is clear of the air all the way round. It waits on the map with the rest of your fleet, and the map's ▶ CONTROL chip puts you back at its controls. An orbit that dips into the air is a ship on a timer. See The shared world and its clock.
My phone said the same reminder three times.
That is on purpose. One chime through a pocket is how a burn gets missed, so every reminder is said three times over. There is no dismiss button: opening the game is what stops the rest. See Reminders.
I set a reminder and my phone never said anything.
Either it was set in sandbox, whose clock only runs while you are playing, so it can only speak in the game, or your phone is not allowed to notify you. The game asks for that the first time you set one. See Reminders.
How many reminders can I have waiting?
Twenty-one. That is as many as a phone will hold once each one has its repeats, and the list simply stops accepting more. Drop one you no longer need with the ✕ beside it. See Reminders.
Can I change my player id without losing my game?
Yes. Each id is a game of its own: typing a new one starts a fresh game, and typing your old one back brings everything to it again. Nothing is deleted by switching. See Your account.
Is there a password on my account?
Not yet. Anyone who types your player id is playing your game, so keep it to yourself. See Your account.
Do rockets I save in sandbox survive when I switch back?
Yes. A saved rocket is a design, not progress, so the ship library keeps it. What does not survive is the flying: everything you launched in sandbox is dropped when you leave it. See Switch to sandbox.