Aerobrakes — Lesson 17: Final Report & Lessons Learned

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The flight is complete and the data is safely archived. This final session is where the whole project — simulation, hardware, and real flight — gets synthesized into something useful for whoever comes after this team.

Objective: synthesize the full project into a findings document with forward-looking recommendations.

Session Activities

Structure the report around one central comparison: what simulation predicted versus what the real flight data actually showed, and exactly where the two diverged. Address explicitly what worked, what didn't, what advice you'd give a future team attempting a heavy simulation-first approach before a real-world test, and how industry teams facing the same problem could save time or money based on what this team found.

Final Presentation

Every team member presents at least one section live, and is cross-questioned by the mentor. This closes the loop on the AI-use rule from Onboarding — the requirement that every student must always be able to completely explain their work, unaided, gets tested one last time here.

Maps to milestone P4-M1.