The testing and integration Laboratory of the National Institute for Space Research (LIT/INPE), São José dos Campos (SP), has completed on December 10th, the simulation tests of the orbital conditions that the Argentinean SAC-D Satellite will face when launched.
The last test was accomplished on the LIT’s large dimension vacuum thermal chamber and over 18 continuous days were necessary to make it. In addition, a hundred of specialists worked on it for a couple of months. Before the last evaluation several environmental and satellite’s measurement tests were done.
Besides Argentinean, French and Italian scientific experiments, the SAC-D, the Scientific Applications Satellite, has aboard the Aquarius device, an innovative equipment used to monitor the sea water salinity developed by the Jep Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), NASA. In order to perform the tests in Brazil, the LIT/INPE has improved some procedures to fit within the patterns of the demanding protocols of the American Space Agency.
According to Petrônio Noronha de Souza, head of LIT/INPE, such procedures which includes safety rules, were audited and approved by representatives of NASA itself. “Our technicians are getting a great opportunity to work alongside the world’s highest team level. We have improved our capacity and we’ve gotten acceptance before the world”.
The LIT/INPE is the only facility of its kind in the South Hemisphere able to accomplish many activities as assembly, integration and testing of satellites and its subsystems. For these reasons Brazil was the country chosen to test the satellite developed by Argentina along with the United States cooperation.
In late June, the satellite arrived at LIT/INPE and is leaving the laboratory in March 2011, heading to the USA for its launching. More than two hundred technicians and scientists have been working on the development and qualification of the satellite.
Overall many electromagnetic and compatibility interference tests, vibration, acoustic vibration, separation shock, thermal-vacuum tests have been performed, besides the measurement of the satellite mass feature evaluations as well. The inability to make repairs when it is in orbit demands the simulation in Earth of all conditions the satellite will have to face since its launching until the end of its lifetime in space.
The accomplishment of these tests in Brazil is a result of an agreement between the Brazilian Space Agency (AEB) along with the Comisión Nacional de Actividades Espaciales (CONAE), Argentina. Besides this joint mission LIT/INPE, has already performed two other operations with Argentinean satellites, the SAC-B and C.
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