Mission Accomplished

You have successfully designed a CubeSat mission, demonstrating mastery over orbital mechanics, power budgets, and systems engineering.

Module 04 — Capstone

Mission Design

Design a complete CubeSat mission. Your objective determines the environment, which drives the hardware, framing the budget. Everything you learned in Modules 1–3 comes together here.

// Step 1 — Mission Objective What does your satellite do?

Define Your Mission

Every spacecraft starts with an objective. This single decision dynamically constrains your orbit choices, payload power, and pointing accuracy bounds.

🌍
Earth Observation
Capture images or data about Earth's surface. High pointing required.
Locks Orbit: SSO / Polar
🌦️
Weather Monitoring
Monitor atmospheric conditions or storm tracking.
Locks Orbit: SSO / Polar
📶
Communications
Store-and-forward messaging or IoT relay constellation.
Preferred: Equatorial LEO
🔬
Technology Demo
Test new hardware or software in the space environment.
Flexible Orbit
// Step 2 — Orbit Selection Where does your satellite fly?

Select Your Orbit

Your orbit dictates coverage, eclipse fraction, and radiation exposure. Some options may be greyed out based on the structural bounds of your chosen Mission Objective.

Equatorial LEO
Low Earth Orbit. Fast revisit, low radiation, standard launch.
Sun-Synchronous (SSO)
Passes over regions at consistent local solar times. Great for imaging.
MEO
Medium Earth Orbit. Longer period, high radiation exposure.
Altitude 500 km
300 km2000 km
Inclination 97.4°
0°180°
⚠ HIGH DRAG: Orbit will decay rapidly.
☢ HIGH RADIATION: Van Allen belts.
96.7 min
Period
7.6 km/s
Velocity
35.2%
Eclipse
// Step 3 — Spacecraft Sizing Hardware constraints & Budgets

Size Your CubeSat

Determine your structural volume. The total power and mass margins below are strictly constrained by the capability of the selected form factor.

1U
1.3 kg max
3.0W Gen Limit
2U
2.6 kg max
6.0W Gen Limit
3U
4.0 kg max
10.0W Gen Limit
6U
8.0 kg max
24.0W Gen Limit
Payload Power 1.5 W
Payload Mass 350 g
Pointing Req. 5°
Data Vol/Pass 50 MB
MASS MARGIN
POWER MARGIN
// Step 4 — Trade Studies Dynamic Subsystem Matrix

Select Hardware Architectures

In aerospace engineering, COTS (Commercial Off-The-Shelf) trade studies balance competing metrics. Select one component from each category below to lock in your spacecraft architecture. The system highlights the recommended option based on your payload/orbit, but choosing sub-optimal hardware will penalize your final mission feasibility.

// ADCS Architecture
OptionPrecisionScore
// Communications Band
BandData RateScore
// Propulsion Need
SystemCapabilityScore
// Step 5 — Mission Design Document
--
Mission Feasibility Index
// Mission Summary
Type—
Orbit—
Altitude—
Inclination—
Period—
Form Factor—
Est. Mass—
Est. Power—