1. When the station must survive its own supply

Stanisław Lem’s Solaris returns as the recalled work because the station must keep core functions alive even when the ocean produces phenomena that disrupt its systems. The desktop must do the same: keep attitude control, thermal survival, and fault protection alive even when the power bus is misbehaving.

This entry defines success and failure for the power failure and brownout recovery test.

2. Minimum success

The test passes if:

  • Critical loads continue through all bus voltage sags within the designed tolerance.
  • A processor brownout results in a clean reset and recovery to a known state.
  • Battery depletion triggers power-safe mode before any critical function is lost.
  • Loss of an array string is detected and compensated by load reduction or charge management.
  • Sudden load changes do not cause bus collapse or overvoltage damage.
  • Load shedding follows the defined priority order and preserves critical functions.
  • Controlled shutdown and sequenced restart complete without cascading failures.
  • Persistent storage remains consistent after unexpected power loss.
  • Ground receives a coherent event report after each injected fault.

This minimum says the desktop’s power architecture can absorb common power disturbances.

3. Full success

A stronger result would add:

  • Non-critical loads also recover without manual intervention.
  • Recovery is fast enough that external customers do not notice transient power events.
  • The platform predicts battery depletion and acts before the low-voltage cutoff.
  • Power fault injection results match predictions from power budget analysis.
  • No single power disturbance requires a platform reboot to recover.
  • Recovery actions consume predictable energy and time.

This stronger result supports a claim that the desktop’s power system is robust enough for extended autonomous operation.

4. Failure modes

The test fails if any of the following occur:

  • A critical load is lost during a designed-tolerance sag.
  • A brownout corrupts processor state or leaves the platform unrecoverable.
  • Battery depletion causes data loss or thermal runaway before safe mode is reached.
  • Loss of an array string causes bus collapse because load is not reduced.
  • A load change causes overvoltage damage or trips the main protection.
  • Load shedding ignores priority order and disables critical functions.
  • Restart sequencing causes inrush collapse or repeated brownouts.
  • Persistent storage is corrupted by a power loss during a write.
  • Recovery actions are not logged or are incomprehensible to ground.

Each failure mode points to a fix in bus regulation, protection design, software state management, or recovery sequencing.

5. What this changes

  • The power failure and brownout recovery test has clear pass and fail criteria.
  • The criteria separate survival from graceful recovery.
  • The next entry will close the test arc.