Can you trust what the spacecraft tells you?
A spacecraft cannot see itself. Everything it reports comes from instruments, and instruments are never perfect. Your team will fly the same manoeuvre twice, changing nothing except the quality of the instruments, and find out what that does to what the spacecraft knows about itself.
If the instruments get worse, does the spacecraft get worse - or does it just stop knowing where it is?
Your role
Guidance and sensing engineer
Objective
Separate simulated truth from estimated state while comparing perfect and realistic instruments.
Success looks like
Run both sensor profiles, distinguish truth from estimate, choose evidence, and explain the model's instrument limit.
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 sensor quality propagates into estimator error without altering the control outcome, and demonstrate this by tracing that path through the evidence.
- 02By the end of this mission, the learner will be able to evaluate the operational risk of a spacecraft whose knowledge of itself degrades while its behaviour does not, and demonstrate this by naming a decision that risk would affect.
- 03By the end of this mission, the learner will be able to formulate a bounded recommendation on instrument selection 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 runs, one difference: the quality of the instruments. The manoeuvre and the controls are identical, so anything that changes came from the instruments.
Being somewhere and knowing where you are
These are two different things. A spacecraft can be pointing exactly where it should while its instruments insist it is somewhere else. Engineers keep the two apart on purpose: what is true, what was measured, and what the onboard software concluded.
Predict before you run
Before you run anything: if we fit worse instruments, will the spacecraft end up further from its target? Say what you expect and why.
With worse instruments, will the spacecraft end up further from its target? Say what you expect and why.
At least 20 characters — say what you expect and why.
Confirm mission readiness
This is a local preparation check. It is not Challenge qualification and creates no official attempt.
- Mission objective and success criterion reviewed
- Preparation diagnostic answered
- Mission theory reviewed
- Prediction recorded
Official qualification: false. This acknowledgement stays in this browser.
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
Perfect instruments
Candidate case
Realistic instruments
- Write your prediction first.
- Change nothing except the instruments, so anything that moves was caused by them.
- The readings are simulated. No instrument on a real spacecraft was measured here.
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
Fly it with perfect instruments first, then with realistic ones. Nothing else changes.
Baseline
Perfect instruments
Candidate
Realistic instruments
Run the baseline first so you have something to compare against.
Read the evidence
Look at the two lines. One is where the spacecraft really was. The other is how wrong its own estimate was. Compare them across both runs.
Run the Twin to produce evidence.
Make the engineering decision
Which set of instruments would you fit, and which number in your evidence supports that?
Which set of instruments do you recommend, and what evidence supports it?
What this does not prove
What this mission shows
- My prediction
- The truth-against-estimate comparison for both sets of instruments
- Where each number came from
- One thing this model does not cover
What it does not establish
- The instrument readings are simulated by a teaching model. No real sensor was measured.
- The onboard estimator here is a teaching estimator, not a flight-certified one.
- This lesson does not show how any particular real instrument would perform.
Name one thing this model does not tell you about real instruments.
Show what you understood
Formative feedback for you and your teacher. There is no official grade.
With the poorer instruments, where did the spacecraft actually end up?
Which number tells you how wrong the spacecraft was about itself?
Which set of instruments would you fit, and which number backs that up?
Name one thing this model does not tell you about real instruments.
Reflect and complete
Completion records the work you did; it does not mean mastery, qualification, or an official grade.
Why can a spacecraft be on target while its estimate is wrong, and what additional validation would build confidence?
At least 20 characters. Editing this or any source work after completion invalidates the local record.
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.
Save and hand in
Keep a copy of the work stored in this browser, or send it to your teacher for review.
Finalize the mission to create a local-practice record on this device.