Validation & Tuning

Keep missions reliable by monitoring energy drift, comparing against references, and tailoring force models to the task at hand.

Energy & Invariants

• The physics step tracks energy error internally for diagnostics, but it is not yet surfaced in the UI. Export propagated states and evaluate energetic invariants in your analysis tooling when you need a detailed audit.
• IAS15 and the symplectic schemes remain the most reliable choices for long integrations where energy drift is critical.

Reference Comparisons

• Export state vectors and orbit segments to tools such as STK or GMAT to cross-check trajectory fidelity.
• Use identical frames and epoch definitions during comparison; mismatched conventions hide solver issues behind frame offsets.

Debug Tooling

• Capture dense orbit segments from the worker when you need to inspect numerical behaviour offline. Remember to disable the export once you have the data to keep message volume manageable.
• For live insight, log state vectors or energy calculations from mission scripts—the core app does not yet expose a developer logging toggle.

Customising Force Models

• Switch integrators and adjust tolerances from Settings → Simulation to balance speed against accuracy.
• Modify planet definitions (J2/J3, atmosphere, SRP multipliers) or enable the global two-body-only mode during focused tests. Fine-grained perturbation toggles are not available in the UI yet.
• Some directives (e.g., :circular) rely on precomputed datasets; run “Calculate delta-v budget” before execution to populate dependent fields.

Revisit these controls whenever mission goals change—optimal settings depend on simulation duration, perturbation strength, and manoeuvre cadence.