> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.rotastellar.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Missions & Plans

> Organize satellite operations with missions and build execution plans with presets or custom workloads

# Missions & Plans

Missions and plans are the core organizing concepts in Mission Control.

## Missions

A **mission** is a workspace that groups related satellite operations. It contains plans, deployments, and an activity log.

### Creating Missions

Click **New Mission** from the missions page. Each mission has:

* **Name** — A descriptive label (e.g., "Arctic Monitoring Fleet", "ISS ML Pipeline")
* **Description** — Optional context about the mission's objectives

### Activity Feed

Every mission has an activity feed that logs:

* Plan creation and updates
* Deployment starts and completions
* Configuration changes

## Plans

A **plan** is a constraint-aware execution schedule generated by the [CAE engine](/cae/overview). It maps a workload to a specific satellite's orbital environment.

### Presets vs Custom

**Presets** are ready-to-use workload definitions:

| Preset                                                              | Steps | Use Case                                                |
| ------------------------------------------------------------------- | ----- | ------------------------------------------------------- |
| [On-Board ML Inference](/cae/presets#on-board-ml-inference)         | 4     | Run ML models entirely on-board, downlink only results  |
| [Split Learning](/cae/presets#split-learning-pipeline)              | 9     | Bidirectional training across space-ground boundary     |
| [Earth Observation QA](/cae/presets#earth-observation-with-qa)      | 8     | Capture, quality filter, compress, and downlink imagery |
| [Federated Learning](/cae/presets#federated-learning)               | 10    | Privacy-preserving distributed training                 |
| [Store-and-Forward](/cae/presets#resilient-store-and-forward-relay) | 5     | Erasure-coded relay through orbit                       |

**Custom workloads** let you define your own step DAG:

```json theme={null}
{
  "name": "My Pipeline",
  "steps": [
    {
      "id": "capture",
      "name": "Sensor Capture",
      "location": "onboard",
      "duration_s": 30,
      "depends_on": [],
      "requires": {
        "power_w": 40,
        "compute": 0.3,
        "thermal_w": 15,
        "memory_mb": 256,
        "storage_mb": 1024
      },
      "output_data_mb": 500
    },
    {
      "id": "process",
      "name": "Ground Processing",
      "location": "ground",
      "duration_s": 60,
      "depends_on": ["capture"],
      "requires": {
        "power_w": 100,
        "compute": 1.0,
        "memory_mb": 2048
      },
      "input_data_mb": 500,
      "output_data_mb": 50
    }
  ]
}
```

See [Custom Workloads](/cae/custom-workloads) for the full schema.

### Plan Contents

Every plan includes:

| Section                 | Description                                                  |
| ----------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------ |
| **Orbital Environment** | Eclipse fraction, ground station passes, available windows   |
| **Placement Decisions** | Which steps run on-board vs on the ground, with reasoning    |
| **Transfer Schedule**   | Ground station passes used, FEC overhead, data volumes       |
| **Error Budget**        | Worst-case BER, retransmission reserves, delivery confidence |
| **Security Summary**    | Encryption algorithm, key exchanges, data classification     |
| **Execution Timeline**  | Step-by-step event stream with timestamps                    |
| **Cost Estimate**       | Compute and transfer costs in USD                            |

### Plan Comparison

When you have multiple plans (different presets, satellites, or configurations), use the **Compare** feature on the mission page. Select 2-3 plans to see side-by-side metrics: duration, cost, confidence, and data volumes.

## Deployments

Deploy a plan to run it. Choose between:

* **Simulated** — Server generates events from the plan's event timeline. Configurable speed (1x to 10,000x). No agent required.
* **Live** — Creates a pending deployment that an [Operator Agent](/agent/overview) picks up during its next poll cycle.

Track deployment progress in real-time with the event timeline. Events are grouped by phase: placement, compute, transfer, security, and lifecycle.

### Status Flow

```
pending → dispatched → running → completed
                                → failed
         → cancelled
```