Engineering a Space Mission
Students act as a mission team and walk through the engineering design process, using real problems from missions to the Moon, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn: criteria and constraints, trade studies, failure analysis, testing and iteration.
Grades 5-8About 15 minutes of narrated flight, plus discussion stops6 stops
The full guide, with the 40-minute plan, discussion key points, exit ticket, activities, transcript and PDF, comes with a teacher license. Already licensed? Use Open the full guide.
What students will see and do
Students start and end at Earth, with stops at the Moon (landing without air), Mars (the Mars Climate Orbiter units mistake), Jupiter (Juno's solar power and radiation vault) and Saturn (Cassini's planned finale). Aetherion pauses for discussion at the Moon, Mars and Saturn.
Learning objectives
- Define criteria and constraints for a space mission and give an example of each.
- Use a simple trade study to compare at least two design solutions against the same criteria.
- Analyze a real mission failure (Mars Climate Orbiter) and propose a process change that would prevent it.
- Explain why testing and iteration improve a design before launch.
NGSS connections
| MS-ETS1-1 | Students define a mission problem with precise criteria and constraints such as mass, cost, power and launch windows. |
|---|---|
| MS-ETS1-2 | Students evaluate competing design solutions (parachutes vs rocket braking, solar vs nuclear power) with a trade study. |
| MS-ETS1-3 | Students analyze test results and real failures to identify the best characteristics of each design for a new solution. |
| MS-ETS1-4 | Students describe how models, twin rovers and test chambers generate data to refine a design through iteration. |
Stops on this journey
- Defining the Problem
- Landing Without Air (discussion stop)
- The Units Mistake (discussion stop)
- Power and Protection
- How a Mission Ends (discussion stop)
- Test Like You Fly
Vocabulary
- criteria
- constraint
- trade study
- prototype
- iteration
- launch window
- aerobraking
- planetary protection