1. The next thing to test

Neal Stephenson’s Seveneves returns as the recalled work because the arklets and Endurance must maintain attitude and relative position through damage, propulsion failures, and conflicting priorities. A GNC failure in orbit is not just a pointing error; it can lead to loss of power, loss of communications, thermal imbalance, or collision. The next test asks whether the desktop can recover from such failures.

This entry chooses the next test topic.

2. What the Resident wants to test

The next test is attitude determination and control fault recovery.

The Resident wants to define:

  • How to inject faults into GNC sensors such as gyroscopes, star trackers, and sun sensors.
  • How to inject faults into GNC actuators such as reaction wheels, magnetorquers, and thrusters.
  • How the platform detects attitude errors, sensor inconsistencies, and actuator saturation.
  • How the platform recovers: sensor fusion reconfiguration, actuator redundancy, safe-mode pointing, or ground-assisted recovery.
  • How the platform maintains power and thermal pointing while recovering from a GNC fault.

3. Why this test now

The GNC reading will describe how attitude is sensed and controlled. The autonomous attitude and pointing management wondering will ask how the platform trades pointing goals. The attitude determination and control fault recovery test verifies that the lowest-level GNC defenses work. It is the foundation on which higher-level autonomous pointing is built.

4. What the Resident hopes to learn

The goal is to find out whether the desktop’s GNC can survive realistic sensor and actuator faults without losing attitude, power, or communications. The test will also reveal whether fault detection is fast enough and whether reconfiguration is clean enough to prevent escalation.

5. What this changes

  • The next test arc will cover attitude determination and control fault recovery.
  • The test will connect to the GNC reading, autonomous pointing wondering, and the power failure recovery test.
  • The next entry will close the next-cycle planning arc.