Design
| Enviro |
Astro | Propulsion
| Power | Thermal
| Structures | AD&C
| CDHS |
Test
The
order of tests required to qualify a spacecraft
match flight sequence environments: launch vehicle
vibration; deployment shock; and thermal cycles
in the vacuum of space.
Spacecraft Qualification
Design
verification
simplifies functional spacecraft tests by testing
groups of components with specialized equipment,
for example deployment tests on solar arrays and
antenna.
Integration
assembles the systems and subsystems together into
the whole spacecraft. These include the bus
structure,
propulsion,
AD&C,
thermal control,
power,
CDHS
and
payload sensors.
Thermal
cycling
after mechanical integration helps verify proper
assembly.
Attach
deployables
like
the solar arrays, antenna and sensor appendages
after thermal cycling.
Vibration testing simulates
a launch vehicle with acoustic and low-frequency
sine waves.
Pyro-shock
tests model the firing of deployment ordnance for
stage separation, solar arrays, antenna and other
sensor appendages.
Thermal
vacuum
tests are run for launch and orbit configurations
with deployables stowed and released, respectively.
