On Sun, 17 Nov 2002 02:37:11 EST, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > This sort of testing is the difference between, say, 90% reliability, and >99.99%. It's expensive--the more so if you create a software model to >analyze the acoustic and infrasonic vibrational modes. But if you can't >afford to lose a bird, (a DSCS III cost about 1.3 gigabucks in today's money) >you do it. This is a judgment call, but where XCorp and especially ERPS >are now, I think one accepts a higher level of risk to be able to do anything >at all.
Absolutely. At our budget level, we achieve most of our reliability through overengineering. > However, if you do have some sacrificial hardware, and can think of a >cheap way of shaking it to see what comes lose, and have the hours to spare, >I think it would be in the direction of goodness to shake it. If you're >already flying something, high resolution accelerometer data from flights can >stand in for computer model predictions--the goal is for the test regime to >exceed the envelope of the flight regime. Exceed? Oh boy. Anyone know a cheap way to produce in excess of 5 g +/- 10 g, at 40 Hz? I wouldn't be a bit surprised if that kind of abuse is what spoofed the baro altimeter last weekend. Hm, a platform connected to a cam on a motor on a centrifuge in a vacuum chamber? Sounds expensive. :-) -R -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] "The only time an aircraft has too much fuel on board is when it is on fire." -Sir Charles Kingsford Smith _______________________________________________ ERPS-list mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.erps.org/mailman/listinfo/erps-list
