All right,
attention please.
This is the most critical part of our mission.
Our spacecraft is ready to enter orbit around the Moon
We need to tackle one major obstacle.
As you know, we need to reduce the speed of the spacecraft
to be captured and enter a stable lunar orbit.
This burn will take place when the spacecraft is behind the Moon,
when we have no communication with it
I need you to focus
especially if anything goes wrong when we’re out of contact
Any questions?
Good,
let’s get to work.
On console in ten minutes
SOM, OD, how do you read me?
OD, SOM, I read you 5 by 5
Is the attitude monitoring up and running?
Yes, it is
OD, Flight Dynamics, I also read you loud and clear
OD, ground station, I also read you 5 by 5
All stations, standby for the burn
OD, SOM,
capture burn has started
Copy that - burn started
AOCS, SOM, status?
SOM, AOCS propulsion as expected
AOCS, SOM copy
OK, let’s do this
Don't worry.
This is going to be alright.
Just watch your screens
1 minute to black out
SOM, Flight Dynamics,
we'll be occulted by the Moon in one minute.
We'll have a 30
that is 3-0 minute loss of signal
Flight Dynamics, SOM, Copy.
LOS in one minute
SOM, OM, copy.
We’re still tracking.
5 seconds.
We have LOS
Hang in there...
OM, SOM we expect the signal back in 10 seconds…
5 seconds
Roger that SOM…
SOM, OM, we're...
err...
stand-by...
OM, SOM, do we have telemetry back?
SOM, that’s…
negative…
No telemetry at this point…
wait a moment…
OK.
Copy.
SOM, OM the ground station reports they see a beacon,
they see the signal for a very short time and then it’s disappearing
It’s spinning.
Our spacecraft must be in survival mode
What happened?
Why is it spinning?
It doesn’t know where Earth is,
so it's sending a beacon for us to find it
In any event, if it doesn’t know where it’s pointing,
the engine will have shut down automatically
The star trackers must be blinded
Maybe we got hit by a solar flare?
Alright, it’s in Survival Mode.
We need to keep tracking.
Keep us updated when that pulse comes back!
OM, New Norcia station
Yes.
Copy
We see a signal pulse
SOM, OM, we just got another one at 07-34-59
SOM, AOCS, I’m loading the commands to stop the spinning
Copy.
Go ahead and instruct the SPACON
SPACON, AOCS, load sequence Alfa-Oscar-Charlie-3-9-8 for release at 07-36-32
Copy, Alfa-Oscar-Charlie-3-9-8 at 07-36-32
Arm and Go
Come on...
stop spinning
OM, New Norcia Station.
Signal is strong and steady
SOM, OM we got the signal back!
And it's stable
SOM, SOFTCORD, we have telemetry flowing back into the system,
it's being processed nominally
Copy!
Flight Dynamics, SOM, we’re tracking again.
How long do we need to complete the burn?
SYSTEMS, SOM, let’s get the engine back up as quickly as possible,
we don’t want to miss the burn window!
SOM, copy.
We won't
SOM, Flight Dynamics, stand by...
we're calculating the revised burn parameters now
On it
What about this one?
We are running out of time!
Go directly to Step 27 in the procedure
What’s wrong?
OD, SOM, we're ready to go in 1 minute.
I'll contact Flight Dynamics to give us the parameters for the...
Break-break!
SOM, Flight Dynamics
Flight Dynamics, SOM, go ahead
We're not going to make it, SOM.
We're going to miss capture by the moon
At this point, we need an additional 20 minute burn,
but we have insufficient fuel
OD, SOM, we missed the injection burn
Flight Dynamics is correct.
There are no remaining options.
We failed to enter orbit
Well done, everybody!
That concludes today’s simulation.
We’ve just uncovered a flaw,
we cannot allow the burn to stop,
so we must work out how to avoid this situation.
Everybody in the briefing room in 10 minutes
Who’d have thought there’d be a solar flare in a simulation?
The team were a bit frustrated,
everything was going very smoothly until you introduced the problem.
Well done
I thought this failure would get them into trouble,
and we found one way this mission could actually be lost
not bad for a day's work.
When I’m done with them,
they’ll handle anything the solar system can throw at them