Mission lesson
Working hard gets hot.
Stage 1 of 7
Mission
Who you are, what you are finding out, and what success looks like.
Showing stage 1 of 7: Mission
Mission
Space is not a good place to lose heat. There is no air to carry it away, so a spacecraft running its camera and radio has to get rid of that heat through its own structure. Your team will run the same demanding workload on two spacecraft and see how differently they cope.
Two spacecraft do exactly the same work. Why does one end up so much hotter?
- Your role
- Spacecraft thermal engineer
- Objective
- Compare two spacecraft under the same modeled workload and recommend the one that manages temperature and energy more effectively.
- Success looks like
- Run both profiles, select temperature and battery evidence, make a bounded decision, and state why this is not calibrated thermal truth.
Learning outcomes · Grades 11–12
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 analyse how payload duty cycle couples into temperature and stored energy together, and demonstrate this by tracing that path through the evidence.
- 02By the end of this mission, the learner will be able to evaluate the margin each spacecraft holds against its limits, and demonstrate this by citing the extremes alongside those limits.
- 03By the end of this mission, the learner will be able to formulate a bounded operating recommendation and state its verification limit, and demonstrate this by naming the physical test that would be required to confirm it.
Preparation
Before we start
A quick check of what you already know. There is no score.
The idea behind the mission
Two spacecraft, the same orbit, the same payload doing the same work. Only the spacecraft is different, so anything that changes is caused by the spacecraft.
Heat has nowhere to go
On Earth, warm electronics lose heat to the air around them. In space there is no air. Heat can only escape by being radiated away from the spacecraft surface, so a spacecraft that works hard heats up - and a bigger structure has more surface to lose it from.
Predict before you run
Before you run anything: which spacecraft do you think will get hotter, and why?
Which spacecraft will get hotter running the same payload, and why?
At least 20 characters — say what you expect and why.
Readiness
This is a local preparation check. It is not Challenge qualification and creates no official attempt.
- Mission objective and success criterion reviewed: not done yet
- Preparation diagnostic answered: not done yet
- Mission theory reviewed: not done yet
- Prediction recorded: not done yet
The set-up you will run
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
Small satellite (1U)
Candidate case
Larger satellite (3U)
- Write your prediction first.
- The workload is identical for both, so the difference is the spacecraft.
- The temperature and battery numbers 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.
Finish every preparation item above first; then this can be confirmed.
Official qualification: false. This acknowledgement stays in this browser.
Operate
Readiness required
Complete every preparation requirement, then confirm readiness before operating the Twin.
Run the small satellite first, then the larger one. The workload is identical.
Baseline
Small satellite (1U)
Candidate
Larger satellite (3U)
Run the baseline first so you have something to compare against.
- Small satellite (1U): not run in this session yet
- Larger satellite (3U): not run in this session yet
Evidence
Run a Digital Twin case first
The results fill in once the Twin has produced evidence. The decision, limits and knowledge check can be read now.
Read the evidence
Compare the peak temperatures first, then the battery. Both are costs of doing the same work.
Run the Twin to produce evidence.
Complete
Readiness required
Finish the required run or comparison, select evidence, make a decision and answer the knowledge check. Then reflect here and finalize.
Completion records the work you did; it does not mean mastery, qualification, or an official grade.
Reflect
Which spacecraft property most influenced temperature, and what physical measurement would you need before trusting the result?
At least 20 characters. Editing this or any source work after completion invalidates the local record.
Your formative result
Revisit the mission evidence
Formative · not an official grade
No formative evidence has been recorded yet.
Formative band: revisit. Any formative band may complete the mission. Official grade: none.
Finish the required run or comparison, select evidence, make a decision, answer the formative assessment, and complete your reflection.
Recognition
Lane C provides a private local-practice record. Verified recognition remains a separate Platform workflow.
Complete the mission first
Finalize the mission to create a local-practice record on this device.
Finalize the mission to create a local-practice record on this device.
Home mission
Home mission: nowhere to put the heat
Find something at home that gets warm when it works - a laptop, a charger, a lamp. Find where its heat escapes. Then write one sentence on what would happen to it if there were no air around it at all.