The Stourport High School & VIth Form College
SHS Department of Computer Science and IT
Year 12 Induction Task – GCE A level Computer Science and Level 3 BTEC National in IT
Modern space travel has developed alongside computing technology. The earliest missions used very
simple computers such as NASA’s AGC (Apollo Guidance Computer) which was also used in very early “flyby-wire” systems. One of the earliest NASA Software Engineers was Margaret Hamilton (shown left with
printed program code).
As part of your induction, you have used the theme of space travel to investigate the
realm of Computing. One of the greatest tests will be a manned mission to planet
Mars. The journey will take between 150 – 300 days (up to 10 months). During the
journey, astronauts will be totally dependent on the systems on board the transport.
Computer controlled systems will be at the very heart of the mission.
This mission will test your ingenuity, creativity and problem solving
ability.
Your Task
1. Navigation systems
Using the internet, find out how Global Positioning Satellite navigation works. Write a summary of
what you discovered.
Spacecraft travelling to Mars will also use star cameras that compare images of stars 10 times every
second. Explain how this could be used to find out your position, your speed and the direction you are
heading in.
2. Communication systems
3. Energy systems
Wireless radio communication with Earth will be relayed by satellites
like the one below which is owned by NASA. Astronauts will still be
able to access the internet and communicate as they can on Earth,
albeit much slower. To send a tweet will take about 6 minutes.
Suggest some ways in which messages can be sent in the most
economical way possible i.e. smallest amount of data that conveys the
most information. *Hint: think of a shorthand code*
The vehicle’s electrical systems will use solar energy. Massive arrays
of solar panels will capture the sun’s rays and use these to generate
electricity. The image shows the arrays attached to the International
Space Station but those on a mission to Mars would be similar. They
can be positioned to capture the most light possible so that the
astronauts are never without electricity.
Write out the algorithm (steps to solve the problem) to move the
solar arrays to keep facing the sun. They will have light sensors on
them to detect the strength of the sun’s rays. You can write your algorithm as a flowchart or, if you feel
confident as pseudocode.
4. Life support systems
Whilst they are away from Earth, astronauts will be totally dependent on
life support systems on board the spacecraft. All of these will be controlled
by computers. The journey time to Mars and back will take over a year.
Some people think we should be sending humans at all. Instead, thinking
robots could be sent because it won’t matter if the power fails and they
don’t ever come back.
Write about some of the ethical problems associated with this. Do robots
have rights? Should we worry about Artificial Intelligence? Would humans be “missing out” if they didn’t
go or are the risks just too great? What if the computers controlling the life support systems fail? Who is to
blame in this case?
5. Mission branding
Finally, a creative task for you! It is traditional that a badge or embroidered patch is designed for each
space mission. Some examples are provided left. Your design must not be larger than 8cm x 8cm but
the badge can be any shape of your choosing. Your design can be created as a drawing or computer
generated image. Don’t worry if you don’t have your own image editing software. You can download Open
Source GIMP at this page: https://www.gimp.org/ This site might provide you with some inspiration and
an idea for a mission name: http://mars.nasa.gov/