Prepare a mission
From launcher to first contact.
Section 4 of 7
Timing & facilitation
The running order for one session, and what to do while learners work.
Mission & depth
Mission: Deployment to first contact · Academic depth: Grade 7 · Duration: 55–70 minutes
The mission
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.
One session of 55–70 minutes at Grade 7.
Teaching brief
What to say at Grade 7
These prompts come from the academic layer, so they change with the depth you selected.
- Theory
- State what you will compare between two runs. Stage intent: compare constrained vs nominal.
- Prediction
- Predict which run will differ and in which direction.
- Running the Twin
- Run a baseline and a comparison on the Twin. Runtime remains the frozen Twin; this plan does not execute physics.
- Checkpoint
- Record the difference you observed.
- Analysis
- Identify what changed and what stayed the same. Evidence intent: mission-state timeline + subsystem/dependency explanation.
- Engineering decision
- Recommend which option better meets the classroom criterion.
- Limitation
- Name at least one frozen-model limitation that this experiment cannot answer.
- Provenance
- Keep simulated, simulated_sensor, estimator_state, derived, reference, and measured distinct. Never label simulated as measured.
Diagnostic
Diagnostic answer key
A spacecraft does well on four steps out of five, but fails the fifth. What happens to the mission?
- ✓ It is in trouble - every step has to work
- · It succeeds, because most steps went well
- · It half succeeds
Timing & facilitation
Timing
One session of 55–70 minutes. Adjust freely — the sequence matters more than the clock.
| When | Stage | What you are doing |
|---|---|---|
| 0 → 5–6 min | Mission | Set the role, objective, mission question, and success criterion. |
| 5–6 → 17–21 min | Preparation | Diagnostic, theory, and a written prediction before any run. |
| 17–21 → 20–25 min | Readiness | Learners confirm the local formative gate after preparation passes. |
| 20–25 → 30–38 min | Operate | Run the bounded baseline, then the candidate where comparison is disclosed. |
| 30–38 → 47–60 min | Evidence | Inspect provenance, select evidence, decide, state a limitation, and complete the formative assessment. |
| 47–60 → 53–68 min | Complete | Review the result band, reflect, and finalize local practice at any band. |
| 53–68 → 55–70 min | Recognition | Explain the local record and the separate future verified-recognition boundary. |
While they work
- The overall score is high and the mission still does not complete. Let learners hit that contradiction themselves before you name it.
- Push back on any answer that quotes the overall score. The question is which step limits the chain.
- Attitude phases use the F1 one-axis training twin; power, contact, payload and anomaly phases are teaching simulations. Say so if a learner asks how real this is.
Can the learner name the limiting step, and explain why a good overall score does not mean the mission worked?
Misconceptions
Misconceptions to watch for
Authored lesson design — what a class reliably gets wrong here, and where you can catch it. Not a claim about any learner.
“Four steps out of five went well, so the mission mostly succeeded.”
Ask what the fifth step was for. A sequence stops where it breaks; there is no partial credit for arriving at a step you cannot complete.
Watch: the "chain" diagnostic · Code:
constraint_budget_or_tradeoff_omission“Improving the strongest step is the best way to improve the mission.”
Point at the step where the chain actually stops. Effort spent above the break changes nothing downstream of it.
Watch: the decision option "The step that scored highest, to make a strength stronger" · Code:
cause_effect_or_control_logic_reversal“Every phase here is the same kind of evidence.”
The attitude phases run on the F1 one-axis training twin; power, contact, payload and anomaly are teaching simulations. Say which is which when a learner asks how real this is.
Watch: evidence — Where each number came from · Code:
evidence_provenance_or_verification_gap
Review & extension
What a good reflection contains
Which event was the strongest evidence for your decision, and what would still need confirmation before a real contact attempt?
- Names the limiting step, not the overall score.
- Explains why a chain of five steps is not an average of five scores.
- Distinguishes the one-axis training twin used for the attitude phases from the teaching simulations used for the rest.
If they finish early, or go further
- Move the bottleneck (Grade 8 and above)
Suppose the limiting step is fixed. Work out which step becomes limiting next, and say how you know from the evidence rather than from guessing.
- Score the chain honestly (Grades 9–10 and above)
Propose a way of reporting this deployment that cannot produce a high number while the mission fails. State one thing your scheme loses compared with an average.
Home mission
Home mission: the weakest link
Think of a morning routine with five steps that all have to happen before you leave the house. Write them down, then mark the one that most often makes you late. Write one sentence on why fixing a different step would not help.
Truth & feedback
Hold this line
- 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.
Tell us what did not work
Ten questions, answered locally. Nothing is submitted or tracked — you download the file and send it if you want to.
Informal educator feedback
This local-first form contains the ten approved pilot-review questions. It does not submit, track, or store data remotely. Optional name/contact should be handled outside this form only if a reviewer volunteers it.