An analysis of spacecraft dynamic testing at the vehicle level

Download
Author
Scott, Alan D.
Date
1996-06Advisor
Agrawal, Brij N.
Second Reader
Leonard, Barry S.
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
The US space industry has accumulated a vast amount of expertise in the testing of spacecraft to ensure these vehicles can endure the harsh environments associated with launch and on-orbit operations. Even with this corporate experience, there remains a wide variation in the techniques utilized to test spacecraft during the development and manufacturing process, particularly with regard to spacecraft level dynamics testing. This study investigates the effectiveness of sinusoidal vibration, random vibration, acoustic noise and transient methods of spacecraft dynamic testing. An analysis of test failure and on-orbit performance data for acceptance testing indicates that the acoustic test is the most perceptive workmanship screen at the vehicle level and that additional dynamics tests do not result in an increase in acceptance test effectiveness. For spacecraft qualification, acoustic testing is almost universally employed for qualification in the high frequency environment. For the low frequency environment, data collected from a variety of spacecraft test programs employing sinusoidal sweep, random vibration and transient testing methods shows that a transient base excitation provides the most accurate simulation for the purpose of design verification. Furthermore, data shows that sinusoidal vibration testing provides an unrealistic simulation of the flight environment and results in an increased potential for overtesting.
Rights
This publication is a work of the U.S. Government as defined in Title 17, United States Code, Section 101. Copyright protection is not available for this work in the United States.Collections
Related items
Showing items related by title, author, creator and subject.
-
Distributed autonomous control of multiple spacecraft during close proximity operations
McCamish, Shawn B. (Monterey, California. Naval Postgraduate School, 2007., 2007-12);This research contributes to multiple spacecraft control by developing an autonomous distributed control algorithm for close proximity operations of multiple spacecraft systems, including rendezvous and docking scenarios. ... -
Thermal analysis of PANSAT batteries and electrical power subsystem
Patterson, Sheila A. (Monterey, California. Naval Postgraduate School, 1994-09);The thermal design of a spacecraft ensures proper heat transfer so all components and subsystems remain within prescribed temperature limits during all aspects of the spacecraft's mission. This thesis develops a point ... -
Computer simulation of a two-phase Capillary Pumped Loop (CPL) using SINDA/FLUINT
Ryan, Peter J (Monterey, California. Naval Postgraduate School, 1997-12);The heat transfer performance of a prototype capillary pumped loop (CPL) test bed from the U.S. Air Force Phillips Laboratory is modeled using numerical differencing techniques. A commercial computer code was used to create ...