High-Channel Count Vibration and Modal Testing of Spacecraft

The China Academy of Space Technology (CAST) is China's main spacecraft development and production facility with multiple subsidiaries. One of them, the Research Institute (Institute of Assembly and Environmental Engineering) in Beijing, which is one of the largest spacecraft environment test centers in the world, performs simulation and acceptance tests for spacecraft and satellites on large-scale test equipment.

The institute selected m+p VibControl and m+p Analyzer software products for data acquisition, post-processing and modal testing, utilizing m+p VibRunner hardware. The system has 456 channels of analog input and eight channels of analog output. It consists of two racks which accommodate twenty m+p VibRunner modules and two servers which are used for throughput recording and data processing.

In order to make sure that all the data is captured, a time domain throughput capability in m+p international’s system was used in both sine and random data reduction modes. This enables time domain data to be stored in addition to frequency domain data. This is crucial for critical aerospace testing where high numbers of channels are required for post-test and possible failure analysis. The time history data is recorded in parallel with vibration control without reduction in control performance.