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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 · University

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 design a traceable investigation that identifies the limiting step of a deployment sequence, and demonstrate this by stating which variables were held constant.
  • 02By the end of this mission, the learner will be able to assess which phases of this runtime rest on the F1 attitude twin and which are teaching-grade simulations, and demonstrate this by classifying the phases correctly.
  • 03By the end of this mission, the learner will be able to validate the limits of drawing deployment conclusions from this runtime, and demonstrate this by stating the qualification evidence that would still be required.

Before we start

A quick check of what you already know. There is no score.

A spacecraft does well on four steps out of five, but fails the fifth. What happens to the mission?

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.

First contact depends on a chain of steps, each of which must work.Five steps are drawn left to right and joined by arrows: stop spinning, find the Sun, charge up, point the antenna, make contact. One step is drawn in warning colour to show that a single weak step limits the whole sequence, however well the others went.01Stopspinning02Findthe Sun03Chargeup04Pointantenna05MakecontactOne weak step limits the whole mission, however well the others went

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

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.