[Orekit Developers] Orekit 6.0 released

[MAISONOBE Luc <luc.maisonobe@c-s.fr>]

The Orekit team is pleased to announce that version 6.0 of Orekit has  
been released today.

Version 6.0 is a major release of Orekit. It introduces several new  
features and bug fixes. Several incompatibilities with respect to  
previous versions 5.x have been introduced. Users are strongly advised  
to upgrade to this version.

The major features introduced in version 6.0 are:

 - inclusion of the DSST semi-analytical propagator,
 - improved propagator architecture where all propagators can use events
   and step handlers,
 - much better and faster gravity field force model,
 - Jacobians availability for all force models,
 - converters between different propagation models
   (which can be used to convert between mean and osculating elements),
 - thread safety for many parts (mainly frames, but still excluding
   propagators) while still preserving caching for performances
   even in multi-threaded environments,
 - time-dependent gravity fields,
 - support for IERS 2010 conventions,
 - support for INPOP and all DExxx ephemerides,
 - new frames,
 - new time scales,
 - support for user-defined states in spacecraft state,
 - availability of additional states in events,
 - interpolators for many components like position-velocity, spacecraft state
   and attitude allowing to compute high order derivatives if desired,
 - filtering of events,
 - orphan frames,
 - magnetic fields models,
 - SP3 files support,
 - visibility circles,
 - support for Marshall Solar Activity Future Estimation of solar activity.

Numerous bugs were also fixed.

Version 6.0 now depends on version 3.2 of Apache Commons Math.

Luc Maisonobe, on behalf of the Orekit Project Management Committee

----------------------------------------------------------------
This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program.