The integration of uncertainty analysis methodologies allows for improving design efficiency, particularly in the context of instruments that demand precise pointing accuracy, such as space telescopes. Focusing on the VINIS Earth observation telescope developed by the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC), this paper reports an uncertainty analysis on a thermal model aimed at improving cost savings in the future testing phases. The primary objective was to identify critical parameters impacting thermal performance and reduce overdesign. Employing the Statistical Error Analysis (SEA) method across several operational scenarios, the research identifies key factors, including the Earth’s infrared temperature and albedo, and the spacecraft’s attitude and environmental conditions, as the variables with major influences on the system’s thermal performance. Ultimately, the findings suggest that uncertainty-based analysis is a potent tool for guiding thermal control system design in space platforms, promoting efficiency and reliability. This methodology not only provides a framework for optimizing thermal design and testing in space missions but also ensures that instruments like the VINIS telescope maintain optimal operating temperatures in diverse space environments, thereby increasing mission robustness and enabling precise resource allocation.

Campaign-level assessments of human lunar exploration architectures are commonly performed over finite horizons, which can conceal systematic buffer drawdown and asset drift beyond the simulated window. This paper presents a reproducible methodology in which sustainability is formalized as a periodic (steady-state) property of the coupled inventory–asset system, defined with respect to the modeled state variables and enforced as a binary feasibility gate on all performance evaluation. The architecture is represented as an event-driven multi-commodity flow over a reduced, SpaceNet-compatible network, equivalent to a time-expanded formulation, with propellant demand coupled to transported mass through the rocket equation. Standard measures of effectiveness are augmented with three dimensionless indicators and a composite index whose alignment with the dominant principal component of the trade space is tested a posteriori. On an Artemis III-derived case study the reference cycle closes ($z=1$, 32.3-day margin), yet 18 of 81 nominally feasible design points lose periodic sustainability under launch-delay perturbations, all 18 classifications being statistically significant at the 95% level. Periodic-state closure thus provides a formal criterion for cycle-to-cycle depletion that requires no arbitrary horizon choice. Applied unchanged to three architectures spanning nearly seven-fold in launch mass, the analysis shows an expendable direct-descent concept leading every mass-normalized indicator at a fixed two-crew objective, an ordering that is stable under $\pm 30\%$ dry-mass and $\pm 10\%$ specific-impulse perturbations, while a Gateway hub becomes preferable once orbital infrastructure and extensibility are valued. This study regenerates deterministically from a single input dataset.