Test Facilities: Thermal Vacuum, Vibration and EMC
Is environmental test capacity a hidden bottleneck?
Chapter summary
increasingly yes.
Key takeaways
- 1
Every satellite and many of its parts must be shaken to simulate launch, cycled through heat and cold in vacuum, and tested for electromagnetic compatibility before flight.
- 2
Large chambers are few and expensive, national laboratory facilities have queues, and component makers find that test throughput, not machining, limits their output: one analysis inferred that a leading small-satellite attitude-control supplier's thermal-vacuum capacity caps its output at about 400–500 units a year.
- 3
The PwC/AIA study named limited access to certified test facilities among the industry's main delays.
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