MISSION TO MARS

WHY DID WE CHOOSE MARS TO EXPLORE ON?

• Is sometimes -220*F there or 68*F
• Rocky planet
• Is 142 million miles from sun on average
• Has best atmosphere out of all other planets
• Hope to learn better way to get there or other facts about Mars

WHAT IS OUR GOAL FOR THE SPACECRAFT AND CONSTRAINTS THAT MAY HAPPEN?

• For the spacecraft to land safely
• Financial problems
• Things being misplaced
• Breaking with out being touched
• Parachute is too big to fit inside spacecraft

SPACECRAFT PROTOTYPE #1

• Thought that humans were going to be in there
• Made window so people could see
• Made a kitchen in there so people could eat
• Included rooms for sleeping

SPACECRAFT PROTOTYPE #2

• Added a parachute
• No humans going to mars
• added a heat shield
• Using different materials for the parachute
• put in robot to take pictures and look around on mars

Final spacecraft prototype: One structure that is part of my spacecraft is the parachute. My parachute gives the spacecraft a safe landing by catching air and creating drag.

PARACHUTES

• gives spacecraft a safe landing
• when falling, air gets contrapped in the parachute
• in the canopy part of the spacecraft, air gets caught in there
• the suspension lines are what hold the parachute when falling
• the load is what pulls down the parachute to make it do its job!

testing parachutes

• controls: canopy size and suspension line length
• variable: parachute material
• results: 1.1, 1.2, 2.0

final parachute

• used data from whole class
• had large size canopy, medium suspension lines, paper material
• group decided on parachute by knowing mission ready
• performed slower: 2.4 seconds
• used this work sheet to calculate the data

WHAT DID I LEARN THROUGH THIS ENTIRE PROCESS?

• It takes a lot of tests and data to make the best parachute
• There will be many constraints along the process
• There will be many misconceptions that i will have