A study on qualification margin optimization for space hardware environmental test based on minimizing loss cost caused by miss-qualification

Abstract

In the development of spacecraft and space hardware, qualification tests are conducted to demonstrate the validity of their design. In the qualification test, in order to confirm that the qualified hardware has a design margin, the qualification test condition is set with a margin against the flight environment. As the qualification margin greatly affects the hardware design of tolerance against the flight environment, it is important to optimize the qualification margin. However, the qualification margin has been determined empirically based on the development experience of the government procurement large satellite of each space agency, and there is very few discussion and assessment on proper and optimal qualification margins. Therefore, in this paper, we propose a method to optimize qualification margin from the viewpoint of minimizing the loss cost caused by miss-qualification due to inappropriate qualification margin. Based on the proposed model, it was found that the optimum qualification margin depends on the uncertainty of the test environment and the strength of the hardware, and the loss cost due to miss-qualification.

Keywords

• test effectiveness
• environmental test
• qualification
• acceptance
• qualification margin