Reliable, multi-century power systems for hollowed-asteroid habitats — designed to support life support, manufacturing, docking, and all other operations with zero dependence on Earth resupply.
Provide continuous, safe, and highly redundant power for a permanent base that may operate for hundreds or thousands of years. The system must be restartable after long dormancy periods and gracefully degrade over centuries.
The requirement cards on this page govern. Where this text differs, the card applies.
Installation order relative to hollowing and sealing is unset. Heat not used shall be rejected to space. Life-support heat shall not depend on generator waste heat alone.
Requirement: Every hollowed asteroid base shall operate a fail-operational power architecture (PGEDS-v1). Life support is a separate fail-operational path under IPLS-5.1-002. Redundant life-support units shall not share a single power feed (IPLS-3.1.5-008). Which PGEDS-v1 sources a Lane B base may depend on is unset.
Rationale: Installation order relative to hollowing, sealing, and life-support commissioning is unset. Construction-phase power is unset.
Open Questions: None at v0.7
Requirement: Tier boundaries are provisional. The demand basis is unset. UMP-PWR-001 hot-swap applies up to its port rating. The interface for generation above that rating, and the per-port ceiling, are unset.
Rationale: Allows graceful scaling as the base grows from initial crewed operations to full industrial colony.
Requirement: N per node and the list of critical nodes are unset. The output floor after failures is unset. Load-shedding acts inside the IPLS-5.1-002 envelope and is logged and reported to the operator. Life-support loads are on the separate fail-operational path and are not shed. The shed order for other loads is unset. Whether a hot-swap that lowers redundancy on a node feeding life support needs operator consent is unset.
Rationale: Ensures continuous habitability and operations across centuries, even during major faults or maintenance.
Requirement: Restart after dormancy is logged and reported to the operator. Whether restart waits for operator consent is unset. On loss of link the IPLS-3.1-014 hold applies. The black-start energy source, its capacity, and its storage life are unset.
Rationale: Supports future expansion, daughter-colony seeding, or contingency reactivation of legacy bases.
Requirement: Waste heat may be routed to habitat heating, water distillation, and industrial processes. Heat not used shall be rejected to space. Life-support heating and water distillation shall not depend on power-generation waste heat as their only heat source. Heat-rejection capacity is unset.
Rationale: Maximises overall system efficiency and reduces auxiliary power demand in the closed-loop ecosystem.
Requirement: Hardpoints on one face shall be fed from independent buses. Hardpoints feeding life support follow IPLS-3.1.5-008. Automatic isolation acts inside the IPLS-5.1-002 envelope and is logged and reported. Whether isolation may de-energise an occupied zone is unset.
Rationale: Enables rapid reconfiguration and expansion without rewiring.
Requirement: Critical power functions shall expose physical overrides. A person on site may use an override to preserve life inside the IPLS-5.1-002 envelope. Each use is logged and reported to the operator and confers no operator authority. Telemetry goes to the command node on the 3.1.19 network. On loss of link, life-preserving functions continue inside the envelope. The IPLS-3.1-014 hold applies to other actions. T is unset. Whether a veto can stop a life-preserving action already running is unset.
Rationale: Preserves operator authority under IPLS-5.1-002.
Requirement: Life-critical systems remain at the 500-year figure in IPLS-3.1-016. Whether power elements feeding life support are life-critical is unset. Supersession waits for operator consent under IPLS-5.1-002. TSP-v1 readiness criteria are undefined.
Rationale: Ensures the base remains powered as frontier energy technologies evolve without decommissioning existing assets.
Requirement: Feedstock specification follows the selected source. Fuel, coolant, and shielding specifications are unset until the source is selected. The dose limit and its source standard are unset.
Rationale: Closes the power loop completely and supports true multi-century self-sufficiency far from Earth supply lines.
Requirement: Crew arrival follows IPLS-3.1-018 and IPLS-3.1.4-012. The 180-day power audit is evidence for that gate, not a second gate.
Rationale: Protects biological and post-biological crews by ensuring the foundational utility is verifiably stable before human presence.