Stop the tumble.
A spacecraft pushed out of a launcher is tumbling, and until that stops nothing else can happen. No pointing, no charging, no contact. Your team will try two ways of bringing the spin under control and find out that one of them makes things worse before it makes them better.
How do you stop something spinning in space, where there is nothing to push against?
Learning outcomes · Grade 8
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 select a damping setting against a stated settling requirement, and demonstrate this by naming the requirement before citing the evidence.
- 02By the end of this mission, the learner will be able to analyse why too little damping can make the spin worse before it gets better, and demonstrate this by relating the peak rate to the setting.
- 03By the end of this mission, the learner will be able to evaluate what this model does not establish about stabilising a real spacecraft, and demonstrate this by naming a limitation specific to this teaching runtime.
Before we start
A quick check of what you already know. There is no score.
The idea behind the mission
Two runs, one difference: how hard the controller resists the motion. Same starting spin, same limit on the wheels.
Slowing something down takes the right amount of push
Too little and the spacecraft keeps turning, overshoots and wanders. Too much and it fights every movement. The setting that removes rotation is called damping, and getting it wrong does not just take longer - it can leave the spacecraft spinning faster than it started.
Predict before you run
Before you run anything: will both settings bring the spin to rest? Say what you expect and why.
Will both settings bring the spin to rest? Say what you expect and why.
At least 20 characters — say what you expect and why.
Configure the mission
These are the two set-ups you will compare. They are fixed on purpose: if only one thing differs between your runs, anything that changes was caused by it.
Baseline case
Light damping
Candidate case
Strong damping
- Write your prediction first.
- Change nothing except the damping.
- These results come from a model, not from a real spacecraft.
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 light damping first, then the strong damping. The starting spin is the same both times.
Baseline
Light damping
Candidate
Strong damping
Run the baseline first so you have something to compare against.
Read the evidence
Follow each line from the start. Look at the highest point, not only the end.
Run the Twin to produce evidence.
Make the engineering decision
Which setting would you use, and which result in your evidence decided it?
Which damping setting do you recommend, and what evidence supports it?
What this does not prove
What this mission shows
- My prediction
- The spin comparison for the two amounts of damping
- Where each number came from
- One thing this model does not cover
What it does not establish
- These results are produced by a model. Nothing here was measured on a real spacecraft.
- The disturbances and reference directions are controlled teaching values, not an orbit-derived environment.
- This lesson does not show that any real spacecraft would stabilise this way.
Name one thing this model does not tell you about stabilising a real spacecraft.
Show what you understood
Formative feedback for you and your teacher. There is no official grade.
With too little damping, what happened to the spin before it slowed down?
Which result tells you whether the spacecraft was ready to begin its mission?
Which setting would you use, and which result decided it?
Name one thing this model does not tell you about stabilising a real spacecraft.
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.