• Advances in aircraft and spacecraft science
• /
• v.5 no.2
• /
• pp.165-175
• /
• 2018

Jet Propulsion Laboratory has traditionally performed system level vibration testing of flight spacecraft. There have been many discussions in the aerospace community for more than a decade about spacecraft vibration testing benefits or lack thereof. The benefits and potential issues of fully assembled flight spacecraft vibration testing are discussed herein. The following specific topics are discussed: spacecraft screening test to uncover workmanship problems for launch dynamics environments, force- and moment-limited vibration testing, potential issues with structural frequency identification using base shake test data, and failures related to vibration shaker testing and ways to prevent them.