Design a
Mars Mission

• ✓I learned the fundamentals of web development, including responsive layout, navigation, and building interactive pages.
• ✓Alongside this, I developed the skills to manage and direct AI tools effectively, while still checking and understanding the output.
• ✓I now understand how a Hohmann transfer works and why a spacecraft follows a curved orbital path to Mars instead of a straight line.
• ✓Studying orbital mechanics showed me how kinetic and gravitational potential energy are exchanged along an orbit.
• ✓I can now use delta-v calculations to work out the change in velocity a mission needs.
• ✓The Tsiolkovsky rocket equation taught me how spacecraft mass, fuel, and engine efficiency link together to produce delta-v.
• ✓Kepler's laws of planetary motion helped me understand the shape and speed of orbits around the Sun.
• ✓I learned how to check whether a mission is realistic by comparing the delta-v a rocket can produce with the delta-v the transfer actually requires.
• ✓Making the inputs adjustable taught me how changing one value, an orbit radius or the spacecraft mass, reshapes the whole mission rather than just one number.
• ✓I came to appreciate how physical constants and consistent units keep every calculation across the simulator accurate.
• ✓Building the engineering trade-off cards showed me that a good design balances competing factors: more fuel raises delta-v but adds mass, and a faster transfer costs more energy.
• ✓Preparing the presentation taught me that explaining the work is part of the engineering, sequencing a live demo and justifying each decision made me understand the maths far better myself.
• ✓Documenting the project and packaging it to run anywhere taught me how software is shared, so that someone else can understand it, run it and build on it.

The skills and theory this project has taught me.

• ✓Built the responsive landing page with hero, subtitle, and call-to-action.
• ✓Created a navigation bar that works on desktop and mobile with a stacked menu.
• ✓Wrote the project goal and the Maths, Engineering, and Software goal cards.
• ✓Built the Project Plan page with a three-stage timeline, checkpoints, and deliverables.
• ✓Added expandable, collapsible checkpoint briefs to each stage.
• ✓Built the Mission page with an interactive 3D scene of the Sun, Earth, and Mars.
• ✓Added the Hohmann transfer flight path, a moving spacecraft, and live telemetry.
• ✓Built the energy-exchange model showing kinetic and gravitational potential energy.
• ✓Created the Maths page with a Mission Constants reference driven by a shared source file.
• ✓Built the step-by-step Hohmann calculator that shows each formula, my substituted values, and the calculated answer.
• ✓Added adjustable mission inputs and destination presets for Mars, Ceres and Jupiter, so the transfer orbit and results recalculate live.
• ✓Added mission playback controls, play, pause, reset and auto-replay, with a day-by-day progress readout during the transfer.
• ✓Built a rocket-equation explorer that weighs available against required delta-v and rates each mission Feasible, Risky or Impossible.
• ✓Added an Engineering Trade-offs section weighing fuel, engine efficiency, transfer time and mission risk.
• ✓Added photos of my own handwritten research notes as evidence in the project log.
• ✓Wrote a project Docs page documenting the goals, the mathematics, and how the site is built and run.
• ✓Built the Presentation page with the final slide deck, a five-minute demo script, and a readiness checklist saved in the browser.
• ✓Packaged the site to build and run in Docker so it can be deployed as a standalone web app.

The main pieces of the project, now built and complete.