Private Division and Squad, the publisher and developer behind realistic space sim Kerbal Space Program, announced a partnership with the European Space Agency (ESA) for an upcoming update. The free Kerbal Space Program update, Shared Horizons, will release on July 1 on PC (later on consoles), adding ESA-themed items and two new missions that celebrate the ESA’s accomplishments.
BepiColombo is the first new mission from Shared Horizons. It chronicles the ongoing mission between the ESA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency to Mercury. Players are tasked with lauching a ship and landing on Moho, the Kerbal version of Mercury, using objectives pulled from the actual ESA mission.
The second new mission is Rosetta. Rosetta is based on the ESA’s successful mission of landing on a Jupiter-family comet in order to gather important research information. The update also adds the Ariane 5 rocket as well as ESA-themed space suits, parts, and new scientific experiments.
“We are excited to partner with the ESA to bring their actual missions and spacecraft to Kerbal Space Program for the first time,” said Michael Cook, Executive Producer, Private Division. “It is an honor to work hand-in-hand with such a world-class space organization, and we cannot wait for fans to experience these monumental missions with the Shared Horizons update.”
“Here at the European Space Agency, many of our engineers and scientists are very familiar with KSP,” said Günther Hasinger, Director of Science at ESA. “Both Rosetta and BepiColombo are highly complex missions that have specific challenges; however, each prove to be very rewarding for ESA and the global scientific community. Because of this, I am very happy that these ground-breaking science missions can be experienced on Kerbin as well as on Earth.”
Kerbal Space Program is available on PC (Windows, Mac, Linux), PlayStation 4, and Xbox One. The Shared Horizons update is coming to PC on July 1, and launching later on consoles. A sequel, Kerbal Space Program 2, was announced last year and scheduled for launch later this year.
