Missions

Students’ overarching goal on Mission Day is to complete all required tasks and meet the primary objective without mission-compromising errors. Both missions engage and empower students by clearly defining the specific roles and responsibilities of each team. Challenger Center staff supervise the missions to ensure the students fully understand the tasks assigned to them as well as the symbiotic nature of the simulation experience.

The CCHI missions are not a form of entertainment or recreation, but rather a multi-faceted exercise in critical thinking and teamwork. The job of mission supervisors is to stimulate practical use of logic, promote independent critical thinking, and encourage self-monitoring. The actions of individual students and the effectiveness of the team as a whole will ultimately determine the success or failure of the mission.

After the mission, each student is held accountable for their performance as they discuss the experience in detail during a debriefing session back in their own classrooms. In addition to completing personal evaluations, students are evaluated by CCHI staff and classroom teachers on skills such as oral communication, reading comprehension, complex thinking, use of technology, and scientific process.

Team Assignments  

Students are assigned to one of nine integral teams and participate in both Mission Control and in the Space Station scenarios. Participants experience the same types of tasks performed by actual NASA astronauts and mission controllers.

COMMUNICATION TEAM    (COM)

The Communication team is responsible for transmitting verbal messages between the Space Station and Mission Control. The team sends and receives short messages and all emergency messages. They also look for dead satellites and cancel out unwanted radio frequencies from the active satellites and audio towers. 

WEATHER TEAM    (WX)

The Weather team is responsible for searching the sky around Mars, looking for any dust storms that can potentially be dangerous for a Mars landing or ROV launch. The also reads and pinpoints certain coordinates to identify locations on Mars.

NAVIGITION TEAM    (NAV)

The Navigation teams measures and calculates the fuel systems on the spacecraft, lock-in future launch dates to Mars, and responsible for landing the spacecraft safely on Mars. 

LIFE SUPPORT TEAM   (LS) 

Life Support crewmembers are charged with performing experiments to ensure all systems are functioning properly and are safe for the Space Station crew. They test the drinking water supply, monitor the oxygen system, check various environmental conditions, and send the test results to Mission Control for analysis.

MEDICAL TEAM   (MED)

The Medical Team monitors the crewmembers’ radiation levels, wellness checks, temperatures, vision and memory to ensure that all crewmembers are healthy. Findings are then sent to Mission Control for analysis.

GEOLOGY TEAMS   (GEO)

In the Expedition Mars mission, the Geology Team studies Mars' soil samples, looks for sites on Mars that have a high concentration of certain minerals. During the Earth Odyssey mission, the Geology Team study the aerosol particles in Earth's atmosphere as well as the clarity of Earth's water at different locations.  

ROVER TEAM    (ROV)

The ROV team assembles a ROVER in the Expedition Mars mission and launch it on the surface of Mars to hopefully find evidence of water.  In the Earth Odyssey mission, they assemble a Remote-Sensing Satellite in that will redeploy in Earth's orbit to help study the weather and atmosphere.

BIOLOGY TEAM    (BIO)

The Remote Team is responsible for conducting experiments on the mass, volume, and density of meteoroids for the Comet Halley Mission. In the Moon Mission, the Remote Team studies soils for iron content, radioactivity, and potential fuel gases. In both missions, robots are used to monitor greenhouse plants in the Space Station for optimal growth. All findings are sent to Mission Control for analysis.

ROBOTIC TEAM    (BOT)

The Robotic team is responsible for programming the map and path that the rover will drive on once it deploys on the surface of Mars. The team also tests the robotic arm for capacities of vertical and horizontal reach, maximum mass/weight lifting and send data to mission control to devise a plan for autnomous working capabilities.