# Good Plan? Great Plan! **Category**: Space and Things **Points (final)**: 77 **Solves**: 54 > Help the Launchdotcom team perform a mission on their satellite to take a picture of a specific location on the ground. No hacking here, just good old fashion mission planning! > The current time is April 22, 2020 at midnight (2020-04-22T00:00:00Z). > We need to obtain images of the Iranian space port (35.234722 N 53.920833 E) with our satellite within the next 48 hours. > You must design a mission plan that obtains the images and downloads them within the time frame without causing any system failures on the spacecraft, or putting it at risk of continuing operations. > The spacecraft in question is USA 224 in the NORAD database with the following TLE: > > 1 37348U 11002A 20053.50800700 .00010600 00000-0 95354-4 0 09 > 2 37348 97.9000 166.7120 0540467 271.5258 235.8003 14.76330431 04 > > You need to obtain 120 MB of image data of the target location and downlink it to our ground station in Fairbanks, AK (64.977488 N 147.510697 W). > Your mission will begin at 2020-04-22T00:00:00Z and last 48 hours. > You are submitting a mission plan to a simulator that will ensure the mission plan will not put the spacecraft at risk, and will accomplish the desired objectives. ## Write-up by [hazel (`arcetera`)](https://qtp2t.club/) In the time range [2020-04-22 00:00:00, 2020-04-23 23:59:00], the USA 224 satellite as given in the TLE above reaches the Iranian space port twice: - Around 09:28 on 2020-04-22 - Around 09:50 on 2020-04-23 This was found in GPredict after loading in the TLE given in the netcat. Additionally, the USA 224 reaches the ground station in Alaska twice: - Around 10:47 on 2020-04-22 - Around 11:10 on 2020-04-23 The rest of the strategy is pretty much just to use trial and error: - Image for as long as possible until the battery runs dry or we're out of range - Downlink for as long as possible until the battery runs dry or we're out of range - Desaturate the wheels about an hour before they exceed maximum velocity ### Full plan ``` 2020-04-22T00:00:00Z sun_point 2020-04-22T09:28:00Z imaging 2020-04-22T09:35:00Z sun_point 2020-04-22T10:47:00Z data_downlink 2020-04-22T10:50:00Z wheel_desaturate 2020-04-22T11:30:00Z sun_point 2020-04-23T08:50:00Z wheel_desaturate 2020-04-23T09:30:00Z sun_point 2020-04-23T09:50:00Z imaging 2020-04-23T09:56:00Z sun_point 2020-04-23T11:10:00Z data_downlink 2020-04-23T11:14:00Z sun_point 2020-04-23T22:00:00Z wheel_desaturate ``` ## Resources and other writeups - http://gpredict.oz9aec.net/ - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-line_element_set