From launcher to first contact.
The moment a CubeSat leaves the launcher it is tumbling, cold and silent. Before it can do anything useful it has to stop spinning, find the Sun to charge, turn its antenna towards Earth and get a message through. Your team will run that sequence and work out which step is holding the whole mission back.
Every step scored something. So which one is actually stopping the mission?
Learning outcomes · Grades 9–10
What you should be able to do, and the evidence that shows it.
- 01By the end of this mission, the learner will be able to quantify how far the weakest step falls below the rest of the sequence, and demonstrate this by reporting that gap against named steps.
- 02By the end of this mission, the learner will be able to model why the overall score is a poor guide to whether the mission completes, and demonstrate this by explaining the role of the limiting step.
- 03By the end of this mission, the learner will be able to test whether this deployment meets a stated completion requirement, and demonstrate this by comparing the outcome against that requirement.
Before we start
A quick check of what you already know. There is no score.
The idea behind the mission
The mission is a chain of steps. Every one has to work, so the mission is only as good as its weakest step.
A chain of steps, not a score
Stop tumbling. Find the Sun. Charge up. Point the antenna. Get a message through. Miss any one of those and the rest does not matter, however well it went. Engineers look for the step that limits the mission, not the average across all of them.
Predict before you run
Before you run anything: which step do you think will go worst - stopping the spin, finding the Sun, charging, pointing the antenna, or making contact? Say why.
Which step do you think will go worst, and why?
At least 20 characters — say what you expect and why.
Configure the mission
This is the set-up you will run. It is fixed on purpose, so everyone in the class is reading the same evidence.
Baseline case
This deployment
- Write your prediction first.
- Read every step, not just the total.
- These are modelled mission results. No spacecraft was deployed and no contact was really made.
Units stay attached to every result: angles in degrees (°), time in seconds (s), power in watts (W), energy in watt-hours (Wh), battery state in percent (%), and elevation in degrees (°) where available.
Run the Digital Twin
Run the deployment. Every step is scored as the spacecraft works through the sequence.
Baseline
This deployment
Read the evidence
Look for the lowest bar, not the average. That is the step deciding whether the mission works.
Run the Twin to produce evidence.
Make the engineering decision
Which step would you fix first, and which number in your evidence decided it?
Which step should engineers work on first, and what evidence supports that?
What this does not prove
What this mission shows
- My prediction
- The step-by-step result for this deployment
- Where each number came from
- One thing this model does not cover
What it does not establish
- These mission results are produced by a model. No spacecraft was deployed and no contact was made.
- Only the attitude phases use the hardware-informed one-axis training twin; the power, contact, payload and anomaly phases are teaching-grade simulations.
- This lesson does not show that any real spacecraft would survive deployment or reach first contact.
Name one thing this model does not tell you about a real deployment.
Show what you understood
Formative feedback for you and your teacher. There is no official grade.
Which tells you most about whether the mission will succeed?
This deployment scored well overall. Did it complete the mission?
Which step would you fix first, and which number in your evidence decided it?
Name one thing this model does not tell you about a real deployment.
Revisit the mission evidence
Formative · not an official grade
No formative evidence has been recorded yet.
Next: Write your prediction, run both set-ups, then pick the evidence that supports your answer.
Formative guidance only. Official grade: none. A teacher still reviews your written reasoning.