System Reliability Testing in Space Simulators

All too often the cost in time and money seriously limits the required testing programs. Scientific personnel accept the challenge of space craft design but are rarely stimulated to design and operate the required testing facilities. The space craft test engineer of today must, of necessity, be an experienced expert in all phases of space technology power-plants, solar arrays, hydraulics, pneumatics, structures, dynamics, ultra-high vacuum, solar effects, etc. Today ! s space environmental testing procedures and techniques have developed a number of varied and specialized test facilities to insure system reliability of space craft. Of these many types, the most important and essential are the Orbital Simulators. The urgency of our current space efforts has been responsible for great strides in high vacuum equipment techniques and systems used for space simulation. To review briefly the state-of-the-art and to provide general familiarization with the reliability testing theory, methods and application of the Orbital Simulator for space flights will be presented. To make an over-all system reliability test, just before the launch—i.e., to find out exactly how the system will behave in orbit space simulators are used