04 — Space Qualification
How hardware earns its ride.
EMC is my specialism — but space hardware doesn't qualify on EMC alone, and my experience doesn't stop there either. Alongside the EMC campaigns I've tested, witnessed and supported the rest of the environmental programme: vibration, thermal cycling and thermal vacuum, on hardware from payload electronics to solar array segments.
Tools
Shaker Sizing
Required shaker force from payload, fixture and armature mass, test level and margin.
Open → 02Random Vibration gRMS
Integrate PSD breakpoints — with proper log–log slopes — to get the overall severity, plotted live.
Open → 03Thermal Cycle Duration
Chamber time from temperature swing, ramp rate, dwells, cycle count and honest overhead.
Open →A lesson from the shaker
The unit survived. The fixture cracked — twice — traced to a weld done off-standard. Support equipment is part of the evidence.
— Lost time, added pressure, lesson kept
Hands-on experience
Three environments, one evidence chain.
The common thread across every campaign: the chamber or shaker, the fixture, the harnessing, the instrumentation and the requirements all have to come together before the result means anything.
Vibration
Sine, random and mechanical shock on space payload electronics — including up/down converter equipment — at qualification and acceptance levels.
- Fixture mounting and axis changes
- Control and response accelerometers
- Low-level sine and resonance searches
- Random vibration, notching and dwell
- Pre/post-test comparison
Thermal
Thermal cycling on space and aeronautical products: chamber checks, hot and cold exposure, dwell periods and functional testing at temperature.
- Hot and cold plateaus
- Dwell and soak timing
- Thermocouple monitoring
- Current draw and self-test checks
- Performance at extremes
TVAC
Thermal-vacuum work including a solar array segment for a geostationary satellite programme — and a year on night shift monitoring five chambers.
- Pump-down and leak checks
- Vacuum and pressure monitoring
- Heater zones and thermal shrouds
- Feedthroughs and harness support
- Oxygen depletion safety
Standards context
Where this sits.
This experience runs alongside the environmental verification approach of NASA GEVS / GSFC-STD-7000, ECSS-E-ST-10-03, MIL-STD-810 and RTCA DO-160. At Mangata this widened from running tests to defining whole facilities — EMC chambers, antenna ranges, TVAC and vibration — as one integrated capability. Analysis is essential, but well-planned physical testing remains one of the most effective ways to take risk out of a programme before flight.