Today MarconISSta team members Martin Buscher, Jitendra Bhat and Alex Sullivan spent the day at Astro und Feinwerktechnik Adlershof GmbH for vibration testing of the LimeSDR and its housing. Vibration testing is used to simulate one of the loads the hardware will have to endure during launch.
Martin and Jitendra testing the hardware.
Alex and Martin observing the setup for an x-axis test.
Upon arrival the team conducted a small functional test to be sure the LimeSDR was receiving radio signals as expected while the experts at Astro- und Feinwerktechnik prepared the shaker table. With everything functioning properly, the protoflight model and flight spare were packed in their special bubble-wrap bags and placed in a box which shall simulate the bag in which the experiment will be launched to space. This box was then fixed to the shaker table.
Accelerometers attached to the housing.
Hardware on the table being setup for z-axis testing.
After vibrating on the z-axis, the models were switched. While the flight spare was under test, the team checked that the flight model had survived fully operational with another functional test.
After lunch, the shaker table was rotated for x- and y-axis testing. This was followed by another round of functional testing where both models performed as expected. In all, the day was a success, with Jitendra and Alex gaining experience with ground qualification. This was especially nice for Jitendra, whom had been working very hard to setup the test and related documents.
