Development of the method of the large scale spacecraft dynamic environment test

Abstract

Spacecraft must undergo such phase as lift-off, inter-stage separation, fairing jettisoning and spacecraft/launch vehicle separation during the launch. And the dynamic environments of these phases can be divided into vibration, acoustics, shock, etc. To assure its reliability in launch and in-orbit phases, many ground dynamic tests must be carried out in the process of development of the spacecraft, such as vibration test, acoustic test, shock test and so on. In the past few decades, with the successful launch of many spacecrafts and satellites, China has accumulated a lot of test experience and established an effective dynamic environment test specification and standard. But, the dimension and the mass of the Chinese space station have greatly increased compared to the previous satellites. The customary test methods and test facilities cannot satisfy the requirements of the ground dynamic test verification of the large scale spacecraft. For example, the force of vibration table required for vibration test is estimated to far more than the capacity of the largest single electrodynamic vibration shaker. So how to carry out the ground dynamic test for these large scale spacecrafts and ensure their validity is the key technical problem should be solved. This paper mainly introduces the development of the dynamic test verification technology of large scale spacecraft such as “Tianzhou” cargo spacecraft and space station. Firstly, the methods of the vibration test and the acoustic test are presented. Secondly, the static load compensation technology in vibration test, the method of the section test, and the extrapolation technique based on the test data are discussed detailedly, and their merit and shortcoming are summarized respectively. Moreover, the technical difficulties research in the large scale vibration shaker and the reverberation chamber are analyzed, especially in the shaker head expander table and the slip table. The development of VTS-1400 vibration test system and RATF-4000 reverberation chamber at Tianjing AIT Test Center are presented in following. Finally, the prospect of the development of the large scale spacecraft dynamic environment test is proposed.