First Mission Study

This tutorial creates the minimum mission structure required to validate ASTROLAB geometry and reporting.

Objective

Create a spacecraft and a ground asset, then run a simple analysis to verify that the state, access, plots, and reports are connected.

Steps

1. Create or open a scenario.
2. Set a scenario start and end date.
3. Create a spacecraft asset.
4. Configure orbit and propagation settings.
5. Create a facility or target.
6. Run a simple link/contact analysis between spacecraft and ground asset.
7. Inspect access intervals and plots.

Validation Checklist

Check	Expected result
Spacecraft appears in viewer	Orbit and model are visible.
Ground asset appears in viewer	Marker is located at the configured geodetic position.
Access analysis completes	Progress reaches 100 percent.
Intervals are produced	At least one contact window appears if geometry permits.
Report opens	Summary and interval table are readable.

Common Issues

Symptom	Likely cause
No intervals	Ground asset out of view, wrong time span, or constraints too strict.
Propagation failure	Propagator settings or environment data are invalid.
Plot is empty	Analysis did not store payload or selected template expects different data.