The coordination of design, development, and testing of hardware to form the AustroMir 91 payload is discussed. An extremely tight time schedule (within 30 months definition, design, development, and testing of more than 10 hardware subsystems had to be completed) made very flexible operation necessary. Five units of each instrument had to be developed and tested: a mockup, a technological unit, a model used for cosmonaut training, a flight unit, and a spare flight unit. All technical specifications and testing procedures had to be coordinated with Soviet experts with respect to the special requirements of Soviet astronautics. Among others, test procedures included acceptance tests in Austria and the Soviet Union, space qualification tests, such as thermal, vacuum, electrical, outgassing, shock and vibration tests, and integration tests in spacecraft simulation units in Moscow (USSR). In spite of the enormous deadline pressure for the preparation of hardware for the first Austro-Soviet manned spaceflight, all systems were qualified on time and taken to the Space Station Mir where they worked without any failure during the whole mission. The payload is presently (Spring 1992) used for continued microgravity investigations onboard in Soviet long term missions and is still working without any problems.


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    Title :

    Technical Management and Test Procedures for AustroMir-1991


    Contributors:

    Publication date :

    1992


    Size :

    5 pages


    Type of media :

    Report


    Type of material :

    No indication


    Language :

    English