Self-Repair Capability
Autonomous Fault Management and Self-Repair System
The Autonomous Fault Management and Self-Repair System is an integrated control architecture that detects anomalies, isolates failures, and executes automated repairs across lunar settlement infrastructure. Operating on 100 W of power, the system uses model-based reasoning and redundancy switching to detect faults within 60 seconds and isolate them within 300 seconds, ensuring no single component failure causes primary system loss. Maintaining continuous operation over a 100-year lifetime requires resolving time-critical anomalies without ground-in-the-loop intervention, adapting to failure modes unanticipated at design time, and coordinating with robotic and manufacturing systems under hardware constraints imposed by spare part inventories, in-situ fabrication limits, and five levels of graceful system degradation.
Autonomous system for detecting faults, isolating failures, executing repairs, and managing graceful degradation across all Ark systems
Purpose
Ensure no single component failure at any level causes loss of an L1 system function, through autonomous fault detection, isolation, reconfiguration, and repair over 100 years without human intervention
Context
The 'immune system' of the Ark. Works with L1-MNT (preventive maintenance data), L1-ROB (physical repair execution), L1-MFG (emergency part fabrication), and L1-CDH (AI decision-making). Implements the MRD constraint that no single L7 failure causes L1 system loss.
Principles
- ▸FDIR: Fault Detection, Isolation, and Recovery is standard spacecraft autonomy
- ▸Model-based reasoning compares expected vs. actual system behavior
- ▸Graceful degradation maintains critical functions as capabilities decrease
- ▸Redundancy switching provides immediate fault tolerance
- ▸Learning from novel failures enables adaptation to unforeseen scenarios
Typical implementations
- ▸NASA Deep Space missions FDIR (Voyager, Cassini autonomous safing)
- ▸ISS fault management with ground support
- ▸Autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) self-repair
- ▸Industrial predictive maintenance with ML
- ▸Goal-directed autonomy (NASA TRL 4-5 for deep space)
Lunar considerations
- ▸100-year autonomous operation requires learning/adaptation capability
- ▸No ground-in-the-loop for time-critical repairs
- ▸Must handle failure modes not anticipated at design time
- ▸Repair capability limited by available spare parts and ISRU manufacturing
- ▸Cascading failure prevention is critical in tightly coupled systems
Specifications
Functional
| primary function | Autonomously detect, isolate, and recover from faults across all Ark systems |
| inputs | Health telemetry from all L1 systems, System models and fault trees, Repair procedure library from L1-MNT |
| outputs | Fault alerts and diagnostics to L1-CDH, Repair task commands to L1-ROB, Part fabrication requests to L1-MFG, Reconfiguration commands to affected systems |
| fault detection time s | 60 |
| fault isolation time s | 300 |
| autonomous repair capability | True |
| graceful degradation levels | 5 |
| no single l7 failure causes l1 loss | True |
Operational
| power consumption w | 100 |
| thermal range c | -40, 70 |
| lifetime years | 100 |
Interfaces
Provides
- Fault management, reconfiguration commands, and recovery actions for every Ark system
- Repair task specifications and robotic work orders
- Emergency part fabrication requests
- Failure analysis reports and lessons learned for knowledge capture
Requires
- Health telemetry from every Ark system for fault detection
- Processing power for fault reasoning and AI decision-making
- Component health data, maintenance history, repair procedures
- Physical repair execution capability
- Fabricated replacement parts for repairs
- Power for SLF processing (~100W, critical bus)
Decomposes into
Cite this entry
Lunar Ark Codex. "Self-Repair Capability" (L1-SLF). Retrieved 10 September 2026, from https://lunarark.com/entry/L1-SLF
Licensed CC-BY-SA 4.0. You may reuse and adapt this entry with attribution, under the same licence.