The Testing Handbook

Aerospace is developing a comprehensive test and evaluation handbook that will codify best practices for planning a successful qualification and acceptance test strategy. This handbook will deal with the up-front planning and production phase as well as orbital checkout. The list of guidelines includes lessons learned from the study, such as:

• Base schedules on realistic and executable models that account for system production maturity, reasonable levels of integration returns, and realistic problem resolution.
• Plan a test program that implements a pyramidal requirements verification approach.
• Test all high-power electronic units, including RF hardware, in thermal vacuum prior to system-level testing.
• Ensure a conservative retest philosophy on all anomalous hardware that accounts for fatigue life from prior test exposures.
• Develop an EMI/EMC control plan that ensures pertinent EMI/EMC testing at unit and appropriate levels of assembly and always conduct a system-level EMI/EMC test prior to the thermal vacuum test.
• Perform early interface and harness compatibility checks on all hardware, preferably during development.
• Plan for intersegment testing at the spacecraft level of assembly and include all flight hardware.
• Plan for a rigorous verification and checkout of ground support equipment well in advance of qualification testing.
• Plan for a disciplined anomaly tracking and resolution process that determines root cause on all anomalies and includes all factory, subcontractor, launch-base, and operational anomaly data.

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