Rocket Launch 🚀

A fun little Android project showing off what the Jetpack Compose animation framework can do — a single screen that plays out a fully animated rocket launch sequence, built entirely with Compose (no external animation libraries, no Lottie/GIFs, no View system).

Demo

launch.webm

What it does

Tap START and the screen runs through a self-driving animation timeline:

1. Idle – a dark night sky with a starfield, ground/horizon, and the rocket sitting on the pad.
2. Countdown – the button disappears and a 3 → 2 → 1 counter animates in the center of the screen.
3. Launched – the main engine ignites (an animated, hand-drawn flame), the rocket lifts slightly off the pad, the sky darkens to a solid color, the ground sinks out of view, and the stars start streaming downward to sell the sense of motion.
4. Separated – after a few seconds the boosters and external tank fall away in random directions/rotations while the shuttle's own two engines ignite (flames rendered under each nozzle).
5. Departed – the shuttle accelerates off the top of the screen and the starfield fades away behind it.
6. Complete – the Jetpack Compose logo fades in at the center with a "Made with Jetpack Compose" caption underneath.

Everything — the starfield, the flames, the ground silhouette, and every transition between stages — is driven by Compose Canvas drawing and the animate*/Animatable APIs.

Tech stack

• Kotlin 2.2.10
• Jetpack Compose (BOM 2026.02.01) with Material 3
• Android Gradle Plugin 9.3.1
• minSdk 29 / targetSdk & compileSdk 37