Spacecraft Structure Model Validation and Test Philosophy

This paper examines the new practice of virtual shaker testing (VST), starting from its motivation to its practical implementations and future possible implications. The issues currently experienced during large satellites’ vibration testing are discussed, examining practical examples that highlight the coupling existing between the item under test and facility and are the basis for the motivation behind the new methodology (i.e., VST). VST is proposed as a way to bypass some of these issues, and here its use as a pre- and postshaker test tool is discussed. In the paper, VST is applied to real test cases (Airbus’s large spacecraft BepiColombo, built for the European Space Agency’s first mission to Mercury), showing computations and real physical test data to illustrate the advantages of the methodology. These are mostly in terms of derisking of the physical test campaigns (due to the capability to simulate realistically the future physical test, thus reducing the probability of aborts and stops during the...