Purpose
What Happens When Things Fail
In aerospace, things WILL fail. The question is: does the mission survive? Power distribution architecture determines single-point failures. Click "Blow Fuse" to simulate failures and see the impact.
The Physics
Redundancy
Single-fault tolerant: survives any ONE failure
Dual-fault tolerant: survives any TWO failures (human-rated)
Power Budget
Total generation > Total consumption + margin (10-30%)
Key Insight: Single-point failure analysis traces every power path. If ONE wire/fuse/connector failure kills the mission, it's a design error. Artifact's redundancy checking automates this analysis.
Historical
Apollo 13 (1970)
Oxygen tank explosion severed primary power bus. Crew survived ONLY because the Lunar Module had an independent power system. Redundancy saved three lives.
References
Space Vehicle Design (Griffin & French), Ch 10 | NASA SE Handbook SP-2016-6105 | MIL-STD-1576