Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Denbigh StarkeyNelson, Grant Jared2013-06-252013-06-252011https://scholarworks.montana.edu/handle/1/1943For small satellite development groups building, testing and launching satellites can be very expensive. Since satellites can have no physical contact while in space testing satellites before launch is very important. To test satellites at low cost software simulation should be used. Several professional software simulation packages exist but they can be expensive to licensed and be trained for. The goal of this paper is to describe a free open source astrophysics simulator that can be used for testing and prototyping. The simulator must be flexible and customizable so that it can be modified for each satellite project. The solution is VideSupra. VideSupra is a software simulator with a built in package for astrophysics simulation. VideSupra is a plug and play application so can be quickly modified and extended as needed. For small satellite development groups VideSupra will provide the needed low cost testing tool.enAstrophysicsComputer scienceSpace simulatorsThesisCopyright 2011 by Grant Jared Nelson