The new technique can test a variety of complex telecommunication payloads, reducing testing time during integration and verification phases. It also results in improved safety and security for equipment and technicians since it drastically reduces the need for someone to perform the tests inside the payload module.
“We estimate the time reduction using this system is five days,” says Marc Le Scour, Payload AIT Engineer with Thales Alenia Space. “We now test all our payloads with it. The costs savings have been on the order of €50,000 on our standard SB4000C3 platform.”
For highly complex payloads, the time savings could in total be several weeks. As a result, payloads can be delivered sooner, improving the overall satellite delivery schedule. The system is expected to become a standard TAS way to test EMC. It has been used to test the AT1, AT2, Yamal-401, Athena Fidus, and W3D satellite payloads.
Future plans include developing a bigger tent for larger payloads.
