Did you watch it long enough?
A model can be perfectly correct and still let you reach a wrong conclusion, if you stop watching too early. Your team will run the same spacecraft twice, changing nothing but how long you look, and test whether a conclusion drawn from the first run survives the second.
Your evidence supported a conclusion. Does it still, once you look for longer?
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 battery figure moves between the short and the long run, and demonstrate this by reporting both values with units.
- 02By the end of this mission, the learner will be able to model why a short observation can support a conclusion the model itself does not, and demonstrate this by relating run length to the evidence available.
- 03By the end of this mission, the learner will be able to test whether a conclusion drawn from the short run survives the long run, and demonstrate this by stating the conclusion before testing it.
Before we start
A quick check of what you already know. There is no score.
The idea behind the mission
Two runs of the same model with the same seed. Nothing about the spacecraft changes. Only how much of its mission you have seen.
Enough evidence, not just correct evidence
Verification asks two separate questions: is the result trustworthy, and is there enough of it to support the claim being made. A short run can be perfectly reproducible and still far too short to justify what someone concludes from it.
Predict before you run
Run the short version, write down what you would conclude about the spacecraft power margin, then predict whether that conclusion will survive.
After the short run, what would you conclude about this spacecraft power margin - and will it survive a longer look?
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
Short run (30 min)
Candidate case
Long run (2 h)
- Commit to a conclusion after the short run, before running the long one.
- Only the observation length changes. The model and the seed are identical.
- These results come from a model, not from a real mission.
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 short version first and commit to a conclusion before running the long one.
Baseline
Short run (30 min)
Candidate
Long run (2 h)
Run the baseline first so you have something to compare against.
Read the evidence
Compare the two battery figures. Then ask what the short run could honestly have supported.
Run the Twin to produce evidence.
Make the engineering decision
What claim would you now make about this spacecraft, and what evidence supports it?
What claim about this spacecraft does your evidence now support?
What this does not prove
What this mission shows
- My prediction
- The short-run against long-run comparison
- Where each number came from
- One thing this model does not cover
What it does not establish
- Both runs are produced by the same model. Neither is measured evidence.
- A longer software run is still a software run and does not establish flight behaviour.
- This lesson does not qualify the model against physical hardware.
The long run is better evidence. Name one thing it still does not establish.
Show what you understood
Formative feedback for you and your teacher. There is no official grade.
What changed between the two runs?
Which reading shows a conclusion from the short run would have been wrong?
What claim would you now make about this spacecraft, and what evidence supports it?
The long run is better evidence. Name one thing it still does not establish.
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.