Design Requirements
TerraMICRO's technical design is driven by making engineering decisions to meet the design requirements listed in this section. All of these requirements must be met before the mission takes flight, with test data to prove it.
By designing the vehicle to meet a set of requirements, we hold our engineering decisions accountable and resist the temptations of scope creep and "cool factor."
When we, as a team, elect to override one of these requirements, we will commit to providing justification for doing so (even if the reason is because we thought it would be more fun this way or because we couldn't afford to buy the parts needed to do it right.)
Critical Design Requirements
Regardless of the mission objectives, the HAB system must meet several key design requirements in order to achieve mission success. These requirements serve as success criteria and also as constraints to the design trade space.
Some requirements are non-negotiable, such as FCC or FAA regulations for unmanned free balloons and other basic functions to ensure a safe, controlled flight. Other requirements may come from limitations related to cost, manufacturability, which stem from the TerraHAB organization's own budgets. These critical requirements supercede any mission or design requirements that contribute to meeting the mission's objectives.
Mission Success Criteria
The objectives listed in this section provide the basis for TerraHAB's criteria for success and drive all other mission requirements. These objectives steer the vision and end goals for the mission and every subsystem or feature in the end result should support at least one of these objectives.
Stretch Goals
There are several design features that are specific requests from TerraHAB engineers. The flight system should meet these requests or provide justification for not including them. These features are not required for mission success, but it is expected that the TerraHAB team strives to accomplish these goals.
System Requirements
The intent of this specification is to quantify and control the criteria by which mission success is defined, and to provide traceability to each subsystem's performance to ensure mission success is achieved by the vehicle's design.
Note
All of the systems demonstrated by this mission shall be thoroughly tested on the ground prior to launch. Flight data and telemetry recorded during the flight should be consistent with behavior observed during testing.