Aerobrakes — Lesson 12: Flight Computer Familiarization

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With clearance confirmed in Lesson 11, the team moves to real hardware — starting with the flight computer that will make every in-flight decision.

Objective: students understand the mentor-provided flight computer well enough to integrate against it.

Session Activities

The mentor walks the team through the flight computer's sensor suite, its event-detection logic (how it identifies launch, burnout, apogee, and the coast-phase boundaries), and its telemetry format.

Enforcement Checkpoint

This directly enforces the project's core safety rule: airbrake authority will only ever be used during the coast phase of flight. Students must independently identify exactly where in the flight computer's code and data stream the coast phase begins and ends — not just recite that the rule exists.

Checkpoint

Ground-test the flight computer using a simulated flight profile or a drop test, and have students verify its event detection independently, without the mentor confirming each step for them.

Maps to milestone P3-M1.