For Users
Want to use GMAT? These resources will help you learn the system.
For Contributors
Want to help us develop GMAT? These resources will help you effectively contribute or reach out to others involved.
Governance/Policies
Want to know how we work? These resources describe our processes and policies.
Welcome to GMAT
The General Mission Analysis Tool (GMAT) is an open-source space mission analysis and design tool being developed by a team made up of NASA, private industry, and a range of academic, public, and private contributors. GMAT is intended both for real-world engineering design studies and as a tool for education and public engagement in the spirit of the NASA Charter.
This wiki contains many resources for GMAT users and developers. It is intended for collaboration! If you see anything wrong with any of the pages on this wiki, or wish to add GMAT-related information on your own, please feel free to contribute.
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News

The GMAT development team is pleased to announce the release of GMAT version R2016a. The General Mission Analysis Tool (GMAT) is the world’s only enterprise, multi-mission, open source software system for space mission design, optimization, and navigation. The system supports missions in flight regimes ranging from low Earth orbit to lunar, libration point, and deep space missions. GMAT is developed by a team of NASA, private industry, public, and private contributors and is used for real-world mission support, engineering studies, as a tool for education, and public engagement.
For a complete list of new features, compatibility changes, and bug fixes, see the Release Notes. Below are just some of the new capabilities contained in this release.
- Production quality orbit determination (operational certification expected Nov 2016)
- Code 500 ephemeris propagator
- STK ephemeris file output
- Write command to save GMAT configurations during execution
- Include macro to load GMAT configurations from external sources during execution
- Many new built in math functions and parameters
- 130 pages of new user documentation
To download, visit our SourceForge download page.
This is a one-time announcement. For further information, please visit our wiki: http://gmatcentral.org
To receive future announcements, please subscribe to the project mailing list: https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/gmat-info
NOTE: Source code for R2016a is currently available in a tar file here. Once an issue with SourceForge is resolved, we will update the Git repo with the latest code.

GMAT Users, we’re happy to announce production quality console releases on Mac and Linux. (Note the GUI is still Beta on those platforms.)
Here’s more info from the release notes: This release of GMAT introduces production quality builds of the core GMAT system for Mac and Linux workstations. THE COMMAND LINE GMAT APPLICATION HAS BEEN TESTED EXTENSIVELY using GMAT's script based test system, and is now certified as fully functional. THE GUI INTERFACE FOR MAC AND LINUX USERS HAS NOT UNDERGONE RIGOROUS TESTING, AND SHOULD BE CONSIDERED AS A BETA INTERFACE INTO GMAT FOR MAC AND LINUX USERS. Additional notes can be found below for the Mac and Linux release packages.

The GMAT development team is pleased to announce the release of GMAT version R2015a. The General Mission Analysis Tool (GMAT) is the world’s only enterprise, multi-mission, open source software system for space mission design, optimization, and navigation. The system supports missions in flight regimes ranging from low Earth orbit to lunar, libration point, and deep space missions. GMAT is developed by a team of NASA, private industry, public, and private contributors and is used for real-world mission support, engineering studies, as a tool for education, and public engagement.
GMAT R2015a is our best work yet and is a major, feature-rich release. For a complete list of new features, compatibility changes, and bug fixes, see the Release Notes. Below are just some of the new capabilities contained in this release.
- User-defined functions (sub-routines) in GMAT script
- Python interface
- Eclipse location
- Contact location
- Electric propulsion models
- SNOPT Optimizer
- Space weather modelling in dynamics
To download, visit our SourceForge download page.
This is a one-time announcement. For further information, please visit our wiki: http://gmatcentral.org
To receive future announcements, please subscribe to the project mailing list: https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/gmat-info

As discussed in a number of sources, a leap second is being added on June 30. Here's how to prepare your copy of GMAT:
- Review the GMAT User Guide.
- Download the updated US Naval Observatory leap second file:
tai-utc.dat
Overwrite GMAT's old file with this new copy:
<GMAT>\data\time\tai-utc.dat
Download the updated NAIF leap second file:
naif0011.tlsPlace this file in your GMAT data folder:
<GMAT>\data\time\naif0011.tls
Modify your GMAT startup file (
<GMAT>
\bin\gmat_startup_file.txt
) to point to the new NAIF file:LSK_FILE = TIME_PATH/naif0011.tls
- Restart GMAT.
That's it! If you have any issues, try any of our help resources:
- GMAT User Guide
- User Forums
gmat-users
mailing list

Our server provider has scheduled some updates that will require an outage for the following services:
The outage will take place at the following time:
Friday, March 6, 2015
11:00 AM–1:00 PM EST
Thank you for your patience.


The General Mission Analysis Tool (GMAT) team is pleased to announce that we are holding our introductory "GMAT Fundamentals" training course at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, MD, on October 29th.
This training will cover an introduction to the GMAT project, key features, mission examples, current status, and a series of guided introductory tutorials covering simple propagation, orbit transfers, B-plane targeting, finite burn targeting, and multiple-shooting optimization. GMAT is a general-purpose trajectory simulation and design tool for desktop use, co-developed by NASA and commercial partners. You can find out more information at http://gmatcentral.org.
This is a full 8-hour live course hosted at GSFC. We are happy to facilitate public attendees via web conferencing. Web attendees will be able to interactively participate in all portions of the training program.
Please note that this specific training event is for US Citizens only.
If you are interested in this training, please contact Jason Laing at jason.t.laing@nasa.gov. We will contact all respondents with further details.
Thank you
Mojtaba Abedin and Jason Laing
GMAT team

The GMAT team was excited to attend the AIAA SPACE 2014 conference in San Diego earlier this month. We presented two papers covering the QA and flight qualification efforts that took the better part of two years, ending last August.
Grab the papers here:
- Verification and Validation of the General Mission Analysis Tool (GMAT) (pdf) - slides (pdf)
- Preparing General Mission Analysis Tool for Operational Maneuver Planning of the Advanced Composition Explorer Mission (pdf)
We were also excited to host an exhibit booth where we answered questions and met some of our great users:
Thanks everyone for stopping by! We hope to see you next year as well.

Do you want to go to Mars but don't know when to leave or how much to bring? Do you want to study Earth protection by planning a mission to a near-Earth asteroid? Do you want to place a telescope in an orbit that is always looking outwards from the Earth and Sun? The General Mission Analysis Tool (GMAT) is an open-source space mission design tool to help you answer these and many other space flight challenges. GMAT is developed by a team of NASA, private industry, and public and private contributors. It is used for real-world engineering studies, as a tool for education and public engagement, and to fly operational spacecraft. You can download GMAT here: Windows Installer , Source Code.
GMAT R2014a is the second official, production-quality release of GMAT. It is rigorously tested with nearly 12000 automated scripts tests executed nightly and over 3400 automated GUI tests executed weekly, and features nearly 700 pages of quality end user documentation. GMAT has been used to support the TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite), LCROSS (Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite), ARTEMIS (Acceleration, Reconnection, Turbulence and Electrodynamics of the Moon’s Interaction with the Sun) , LRO (Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter), MMS (Magnetospheric Multiscale Mission), and OSIRIS-REx (Origins Spectral Interpretation Resource Identification Security Regolith Explorer) missions and numerous mission concepts.
Here are a few of the changes and improvements in R2014a:
- Trajectory segment colors and labels
- Additional orbit state representations
- Additional attitude models
- Additional parameters for force models, targeters, and optimizers
- Over 120 bug fixes
For a full description of GMAT R2014a, see the Release Notes .
This is a one-time announcement. For further information, please visit our wiki: http://gmatcentral.org
To receive future announcements, please subscribe to the project mailing list: https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/gmat-info

The General Mission Analysis Tool (GMAT) team is pleased to announce that we are holding our introductory "GMAT Fundamentals" training course at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, MD, on June 30.
This training will cover an introduction to the GMAT project, key features, mission examples, current status, and a series of guided introductory tutorials covering simple propagation, orbit transfers, B-plane targeting, finite burn targeting, and multiple-shooting optimization. GMAT is a general-purpose trajectory simulation and design tool for desktop use, co-developed by NASA and commercial partners. You can find out more information at http://gmatcentral.org.
This is a full 8-hour live course hosted at GSFC. The in-person portion is currently full, but we are happy to facilitate public attendees via web conferencing. Web attendees will be able to interactively participate in all portions of the training program.
If you are interested in this training, please contact Joel Parker at joel.j.k.parker@nasa.gov. We will contact all respondents with further details.
Thank you,
Joel Parker
GMAT team

GMAT R2013b has passed the Readiness Review for operational maneuver planning of the Advanced Composition Explorer (ACE). GMAT is ready for its first operational application!

Do you want to go Mars but don't know when to leave or how much to bring? Do you want to study Earth protection by planning a mission to a near-Earth asteroid? Do you want to place a telescope in an orbit that is always looking outwards from the Earth and Sun? The General Mission Analysis Tool (GMAT) is an open-source space mission design tool to help you answer these and many other space flight challenges. GMAT is developed by a team of NASA, private industry, and public and private contributors. It is used for real-world engineering studies, as a tool for education and public engagement, and (after completion of final acceptance testing in Sept. 2013) to fly operational spacecraft. In addition, we are proud to announce a formal partnership between NASA and the Korean Aerospace Research Institute (KARI) to co-develop GMAT. You can download GMAT here: Windows Installer , Source Code.
GMAT R2013a is the first official, production-quality release of GMAT. It is rigorously tested with nearly 11000 automated scripts tests executed nightly and over 2400 automated GUI tests executed weekly. GMAT has already been used to support the LCROSS (Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite), ARTEMIS (Acceleration, Reconnection, Turbulence and Electrodynamics of the Moon’s Interaction with the Sun) , LRO (Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter), MMS (Magnetospheric Multiscale Mission), and OSIRIS-REx (Origins Spectral Interpretation Resource Identification Security Regolith Explorer) missions and numerous mission concepts.
Here are a few of the changes and improvements in R2013a:
- 580 pages of quality end user documentation in html and PDF formats
- Over 600 bug fixes
- GMAT is now licensed using the Apache License, Version 2.0
For a full description of GMAT R2013a, see the Release Notes.

GMAT RC2 was created today. Release R2013a is just around the corner!

I added a link for curators of wiki pages here Wiki Content, Curators, and Migration Plan

We have started our new wiki implementation and are completing the data layout. We will begin migration from old data locations soon.
Recent Updates
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Announcing GMAT R2016aOct 24, 2016 • created by Steven Hughes
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