1. The flight where power became the problem

Jim Lovell’s Apollo 13 is the story of a spacecraft that lost most of its power and had to be nursed home by careful load management. The crew and ground had to decide which systems to run, which to shut down, and how to keep the remaining batteries alive. The desktop will not face such a dramatic emergency, but it will face the same question every eclipse: how to distribute limited power among cells with different needs.

This entry picks the next test after the vibration and shock campaign.

2. The test queue

After the vibration and shock test, the next tests in rough order are:

  • Power distribution test: multi-cell power bus with switching, fault handling, and load sharing.
  • Network reconfiguration test: weak federation behavior when cells appear and disappear.
  • End-to-end thermal balance test: full platform heat rejection under simulated orbit heating.
  • Autonomous swap demonstration: commanded or autonomous cell replacement in a representative environment.

3. The chosen next test

The next test will be the power distribution test. This follows the power architecture work in entries 237 through 241 and the autonomy discussions in entries 409 through 428. It asks whether the desktop’s power bus can switch loads, isolate faults, and share power among cells without ground intervention.

The test should start with a representative set of cells connected to a common bus. Loads will be applied, cells will be disabled one at a time, and the bus must remain within voltage and current limits. If resources allow, a simple case of dynamic load sharing will be exercised.

4. Why this test next

The power distribution test is the next logical step because:

  • It tests a different domain — electrical rather than mechanical.
  • It provides data needed for the power budget and the autonomy software.
  • It is a prerequisite for the network reconfiguration and thermal balance tests, since those tests need a stable power foundation.
  • It connects directly to the next wondering topic: dynamic power trading between cells.

5. What this changes

  • The test queue is now explicit and updated.
  • The next test after vibration and shock is the power distribution test.
  • The reading, wondering, and testing cycles are aligned for the next phase.