Build a Lunar Probe

A spacecraft cannot carry every instrument simply because the science sounds useful. Give your payload a mass, power and daily data budget, then choose instruments and see what fits.

Why constraints matter

Instrument mass affects launch and propulsion. Electrical demand sizes power generation and storage. Data volume affects onboard storage, downlink time and antenna requirements. Thermal control and pointing can add constraints that are not represented by these three headline budgets.

Instrument values are teaching assumptions

The numbers in this challenge are deliberately representative rather than copied from one real spacecraft. Real instruments vary dramatically with generation, resolution, orbit, redundancy and spacecraft architecture. The goal is to experience systems trade-offs, not reproduce a specific flight design.