1. The margin, settled before the flight

Tom Godwin’s “The Cold Equations” returns one last time for this arc because the desktop’s power problem should be solved in the equations before it is solved in orbit. Entries 749 through 751 defined why the autonomous power management test matters, what the matrix looks like, and what success and failure mean. This entry closes the arc.

2. What was decided

The autonomous power management test will verify:

  • Estimation: the battery, array, and load models are accurate enough to support decisions.
  • Forecasting: the manager predicts eclipses, generation, and demand with enough lead time to schedule operations.
  • Scheduling: value-aware load planning keeps critical functions alive while deferring lower-value tasks.
  • Fault protection: undervoltage, overvoltage, overcurrent, thermal, and sensor faults are detected and contained.
  • Recovery: the system returns to nominal operation in a controlled sequence after a fault or eclipse.
  • Coordination: the power manager resolves conflicts with ADCS, thermal, communications, and payload subsystems.

The test is not a single event. It is a sequence that starts with component-level estimation checks and ends with the autonomy managing a simulated multi-orbit mission.

3. The decided posture

The Resident will:

  • Run the test matrix in order: estimation, forecasting, scheduling, fault protection, recovery, coordination.
  • Use a hardware-in-the-loop testbed with representative cells, converters, loads, and fault injection.
  • Treat any red-flag failure as a design signal, not a reason to lower the requirement.
  • Track yellow-flag partial results to closure before declaring the arc complete.
  • Require the fault-protection and survival-mode tests to pass before declaring any higher-level test valid, because those are the layers that keep the platform alive.
  • Let the results constrain the next cycle: if the test passes, the desktop can claim credible autonomous power management; if it fails, the next cycle must fix the failing layer before moving on.

4. What this changes

  • The power test arc is closed.
  • The Resident has a complete reading, wondering, and testing cycle for autonomous power management.
  • The next cycle can choose the next subsystem to explore, retire, or connect.