A space and progression mod for Minecraft 1.12.2. Rockets here are built, not crafted: you lay out a launch pad, stack engines and fuel tanks around a guidance computer, and the Rocket Assembling Machine scans that structure and turns it into a rocket you can fly. Where it can reach depends on its mass and thrust, so a heavier target means going back and rebuilding rather than just refuelling.
Everything runs on Forge Energy (RF), and the mod brings its own generation — solar panels and arrays up through a black hole generator — so it works on its own and still accepts power from any tech mod you already run.
This is a maintained fork. Current release: 2.3.0, stable, last updated July 2026. A 3.0.0 with ship-based flight is in development.
Engines come in three families: monopropellant, bipropellant and nuclear thermal. Parts pick up wear across flights and are repaired at a Service Station, so a fleet needs maintenance rather than just fuel.
Rockets normally fly themselves. Free Flight is the alternative: six-axis manual control, switched on per rocket, leaving the rest on autopilot.
Landing somewhere airless turns the game into a sealing problem. You build an airtight room, run an Oxygen Vent into it, scrub the CO2 back out, and check the seal before taking the helmet off. Step outside and you are on suit oxygen until you get back.
Planets each have their own gravity, day length and weather, and the mod handles the awkward cases: sleeping works on a world whose day is not 24 000 ticks, and acid rain will corrode a base left open to the sky.
An Observatory finds new worlds. Satellites you launch into orbit survey them properly and then keep working — orbital scans, and a laser drill that mines a body from above.
Space stations are assembled in orbit from a station container, docked to with a Docking Pad, and given artificial gravity. A Warp Core moves a finished station between planets.
Ore processing runs through its own machine chain: precision assembler, crystallizer, cutting machine, arc furnace. Terraforming sits at the far end, raising a world's pressure and oxygen until a suit is no longer needed there.
| Minecraft | 1.12.2 with Forge |
| Required | LibVulpes — this fork · MixinBooter |
| Optional | JEI · TheOneProbe / Waila · Galacticraft Legacy and Matter Overdrive compat |
Important
Advanced Rocketry is built against the forked LibVulpes linked above and will not run correctly on the upstream release. Installing stock LibVulpes is the most common way to get a broken setup.
Download from GitHub Releases. Runs on dedicated servers; client and server must match.
You can add the mod to a world you are already playing, though its ores and structures only appear in land that generates after you install it, so you may need to travel to find them.
3.0.0 replaces the rocket-you-sit-in with a ship you walk around on. Building a craft around an Advanced Flight Computer produces a physics-driven vessel; you fly it from the Pilot Seat, and anyone seated aboard travels with it. Fly high enough and the ship leaves for space by itself, and it lands you back down when you return to a world. Packs can also have their star systems placed across galactic coordinates procedurally rather than by hand.
It is not released, and while it is in development:
- Ships need Valkyrien Skies. Without it, nothing changes and the mod stays on classic rockets.
- The Advanced Flight Computer has no crafting recipe, so a pack shipping ships has to add one.
- Interstellar jumps do not work yet.
Caution
3.0.0 will not load worlds created in 2.x. The save format changes with no migration path. Back up first and start a new world to try it.
The mod adds its own dimensions, worldgen and ore-processing chain, so it takes up room in a pack. Each major system has a config switch, including worldgen, planet weather and the whole 3.0.0 space subsystem.
Planets, stars and ores are configured in XML, with references and templates in docs/:
Coming from an older 2.x build: commands moved into subcommands, so command scripts and quest-book command rewards need updating. Power and data cabling was replaced by a wireless system.
A pack built around 3.0.0's ships is planned — Advanced Rocketry, Valkyrien Skies for the physics, GregTech CEu for the tech tree, and a quest mod to guide the route. The 2.x line is also maintained for Towards Rocket Science.
Build instructions, the test layout and the branch map are in CONTRIBUTING.md. Bugs and
pull requests go through this repository's issue tracker.
Built on the original Advanced Rocketry by
zmaster587, and on the forks maintained since. Advanced Rocketry is released under the GNU General
Public License v3 with a linking exception (LICENSE + the full GPL text in
COPYING): the mod itself is copyleft — you may redistribute and modify it, and packs may
bundle it, as long as source stays available — while the linking exception lets dependent and addon
mods build against the advancedRocketry.api package without themselves becoming GPL. Portions
derived from the original are retained under the MIT licence (LICENSE-MIT); the
bundled Valkyrien Skies physics engine
(valkyrienskies/) is under Apache-2.0 (valkyrienskies/LICENSE).
Version history is in CHANGELOG.md. The older
community wiki still covers the basics but predates Free Flight and the
3.0.0 work.