Make the budgets close.
A spacecraft design is a set of promises that all have to be kept at once: enough power, enough storage, mass within limit, balance within tolerance. Your team will put two designs through the same mission and check every budget, not just the ones that pass.
Two designs, one mission. Which one actually closes every budget it has to?
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 power, mass and storage budgets constrain one another in a spacecraft design, and demonstrate this by tracing one constraint through to another.
- 02By the end of this mission, the learner will be able to evaluate which design better meets a stated mission need, and demonstrate this by justifying that judgement against the validation checks.
- 03By the end of this mission, the learner will be able to formulate a bounded configuration recommendation and state its verification limit, and demonstrate this by naming the physical test that would be required to confirm it.
Before we start
A quick check of what you already know. There is no score.
The idea behind the mission
Two designs, the same mission. Each is checked against its own stated limits, and every check has to hold.
Every budget has to close
Spacecraft design is constrained on several axes at once. A design with generous power can still be stopped by mass, or balance, or storage. Engineers check each budget against a stated limit and treat any one that does not close as a blocker, however comfortable the others look.
Predict before you run
Before you run anything: which design do you expect to close every budget, and which check worries you most?
Which design will close every budget, and which check worries you most?
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
1U trainer design
Candidate case
3U engineering design
- Write your prediction first.
- Both designs face the same mission, so any difference is the design.
- These budgets are computed from declared inputs. Nothing here is CAD truth or a measured subsystem.
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
Compile the trainer design first, then the engineering design. The mission is identical.
Baseline
1U trainer design
Candidate
3U engineering design
Run the baseline first so you have something to compare against.
Read the evidence
Read every check, not the headline. One budget that does not close is enough to stop a design.
Run the Twin to produce evidence.
Make the engineering decision
Which configuration would you take forward, and which checks decided it?
Which configuration do you take forward, and what evidence supports it?
What this does not prove
What this mission shows
- My prediction
- The design-budget comparison for the two spacecraft
- Where each number came from
- One thing this model does not cover
What it does not establish
- These budgets are computed from declared inputs, not measured from hardware.
- This is not a CAD model and makes no claim about manufacturability.
- This lesson does not establish that either design would work in orbit.
Name one thing this configuration study does not establish about a real spacecraft.
Show what you understood
Formative feedback for you and your teacher. There is no official grade.
A design passes its power check but fails its mass check. Is the design acceptable?
Which evidence tells you whether a design is viable?
Which configuration would you take forward, and which checks decided it?
Name one thing this configuration study does not establish about 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.