MoonRanger’s Power Switching Board is a printed circuit board that distributes and switches power to components such as the computers, motor controllers and sun sensor. In the event of a device or board failure, the switching can attempt to restore functionality by power cycling. If unrecoverable, the affected device can be powered down by the Power Switching Board to be essentially eliminated from MoonRanger’s capability. This enables the mission to proceed (to the extent possible) without the affected device, and without rippled damage to other devices.
MoonRanger has far more devices than can feasibly be switched individually. For this purpose, the rover’s electronics are partitioned into twenty “switching groups” that power a number of devices on or off together.