Welcome to the wonderful world of GMAT!
GMAT is a software system for space mission design, navigation, and optimization
applicable to missions anywhere in the solar system ranging from low Earth orbit
to lunar, Libration point, and deep space missions. The system contains
high-fidelity space system models, optimization and targeting, built-in
scripting and programming infrastructure, and customizable plots, reports and
data products that enable flexible analysis and solutions for custom and unique
applications. GMAT can be driven from a fully featured, interactive Graphical
User Interface (GUI) or from a custom script language.
The system is implemented in ANSI standard C++ using an Object Oriented
methodology, with a rich class structure designed to make new features easy to
incorporate. GMAT has been used extensively as a design tool for many missions
including LCROSS, ARTEMIS and LRO and for operational support of TESS, SOHO,
WIND, ACE, and SDO.
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License and Copyright
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“NASA Docket No. GSC-19097-1, identified as “General Mission Analysis Tool (GMAT) Version R2022a”
Copyright © 2022 United States Government as represented by the Administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. All Rights Reserved.
Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
You may obtain a copy of the License at
http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
limitations under the License. “
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Contact Information
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For general project info see: https://gmat.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/GW/overview
For source code and application distributions see:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/gmat/
For other comments and questions, email: gmat-developers@lists.sourceforge.net
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Credits and Acknowledgments
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GMAT uses:
- wxWidgets 3.0.4 (http://www.wxwidgets.org/)
- TSPlot (http://sourceforge.net/projects/tsplot/)
- SOFA (http://www.iausofa.org/)
- Apache Xerces (http://xerces.apache.org)
- JPL SPICE (https://naif.jpl.nasa.gov/naif/)
- OpenFramesInterface (https://gitlab.com/EmergentSpaceTechnologies/OpenFramesInterface)
- Boost (http://www.boost.org/)
- f2c (http://www.netlib.org/f2c)
- MSISE 1990 Density Model (https://kauai.ccmc.gsfc.nasa.gov/instantrun/msis)
- IRI 2007 Ionosphere Model (https://irimodel.org/)
Planetary images are courtesy of:
- JPL/Caltech/USGS (http://maps.jpl.nasa.gov/)
- Celestia Motherlode (http://www.celestiamotherlode.net/)
- Bjorn Jonsson (https://bjj.mmedia.is/)
- NASA World Wind (http://worldwind.arc.nasa.gov/)
Some icons are courtesy of Mark James (http://www.famfamfam.com/)
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Installation and Configuration
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WINDOWS
The GMAT Windows distribution contains a zip file. When unzipped,
locate the bin directory then select GMAT.exe to open GMAT.
LINUX
There are two precompiled Linux distributions of GMAT, packaged as
compressed TAR files, ready for expansion and use. The precompiled
releases were built and tested on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS and on Red Hat
Enterprise Linux 7. Linux users on those platforms can download the
tarball file and uncompress it into place using the command
tar -zxf <TarballPackageName>
where <TarballPackageName> is either gmat-ubuntu-x64-R2022a.tar.gz
or gmat-rhel7-x64-R2022a.tar.gz.
Linux building and testing was performed on the indicated distributions. The
packaged executable files have also been run on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS, and on Red Hat
Enterprise Linux 8.
MACOS
The GMAT macOS distribution is now provided as a NASA-signed and notarized
DMG file, and is compatible with macOS 10.15 (Catalina) and above. This
distribution was built and tested on macOS 11.7 (Big Sur).
After downloading and mounting (i.e. opening) the dmg file, installation
of GMAT is as simple as copying the resulting "GMAT <version>" folder to
one of the following two locations:
- System-wide /Applications folder. This requires admin privileges.
- User's $HOME/Applications folder. Admin privileges are not needed.
Copying GMAT to any other location will result in an error on launch.
BUILDING FROM SOURCE
GMAT is distributed in source form as well, and can be compiled on macOS,
Linux and Windows. Build instructions for GMAT can be found at
https://gmat.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/GW/pages/380273355/Compiling+GMAT+CMake+Build+System.
USING GMAT OPTIMAL CONTROL / CSALT
Using the GMAT Optimal Control capability -- implemented in the
EMTGModels and CsaltInterface plugins -- requires additional
installation steps. See the "Software Organization and Compilation" section
of the GMAT Optimal Control user guide in
gmat/docs/GMAT_OptimalControl_Specification.pdf for complete instructions.
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Running GMAT
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WINDOWS
On Windows 10, locate your GMAT directory. From there, open the bin directory,
then double click GMAT.exe to open GMAT.
To use the GMAT Console, open a Command Prompt and change directories to the
GMAT bin folder. The GMAT command line program is executed by running the
GmatConsole application in that folder:
GmatConsole
LINUX
On Linux, open a terminal window and change directories to the GMAT bin
folder. The GMAT command line program is executed by running the
GmatConsole application in that folder:
./GmatConsole
The Beta GUI can be run using the same terminal window by running
Gmat_Beta:
./GMAT_Beta
Linux users can create a launcher for either the command line
application or the GUI application by following the instructions for
that process for their Linux distribution.
MACOS
On macOS, open a Terminal window and navigate to the GMAT bin folder. The
GMAT command line program is executed by running the GmatConsole
application in that folder:
./GmatConsole
The Beta GUI application can be run using the ‘open’ Terminal command,
executed in the bin folder:
open GMAT-R2022a_Beta.app
or by double-clicking the GMAT-R2022a_Beta.app in the Finder.
Please see the GMAT User Guide for important instructions on how to use MATLAB,
Python, SNOPT7, and gfortran for each GMAT distribution.
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User Information
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User docs are available in pdf and html format. The pdf documentation
is distributed in letter and A4 size in this package. The files are
located here: /doc/help/help-letter.pdf and /doc/help/ help-a4.pdf
Online documentation is available here: https://gmat.sourceforge.net/docs/.
For new users, see the Getting Started and Tour of GMAT sections first,
then take the tutorials. The tutorials are included in print versions
in the help documents, and are available in video form here:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCt-REODJNr2mB3t-xH6kbjg
For a list of new functionality, compatibility changes, and known issues,
see the Release Notes section in the User's Guide.
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Developer Information
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Source code is available here:
https://sourceforge.net/p/gmat/git/
Compilation instructions are available here:
https://gmat.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/GW/pages/380273355/Compiling+GMAT+CMake+Build+System
Design Documentation is available at the links below:
https://gmat.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/GW/pages/380273312/Design+Documents
https://gmat.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/GW/pages/380273320/How+To+Write+New+Components
You can sign up for mailing lists here:
https://sourceforge.net/p/gmat/mailman/