Publications Details

Spacecraft pyroshock attenuation in three parts

Babuska, Vit B.; Gomez, Steven P.; Hammetter, Christopher H.; Smith, Scott A.; Murphy, Dylan

Satellites are subject to pyroshock events that come from the actuation of separation and can be damaging events for satellites. The damage risk is mitigated by the fact that shock intensity is attenuated by the spacecraft structure. NASA and MIL handbooks and standards, which were developed from extensive tests performed in the 1960’s, provide guidelines for estimating the attenuating effects of distance, joints, and other structural features in the load path between the shock source and the shock sensitive component. Anecdotal evidence suggests that these rules are not always conservative while sometimes they are grossly over-conservative. The first part of the paper summarizes and interprets the attenuation rules-of-thumb. The second part presents a case study in which attenuation factors developed for a satellite are compared to attenuation factors measured in a pyro-shock test of the satellite. The third part looks at the feasibility of using 21st century computational tools to predict shock attenuation through a simple jointed structure. Such tools have the potential to recreate satellite specific shock attenuation factors that could provide greater confidence in the predicted loads on shock sensitive components by reducing, and perhaps eliminating, the over-under conservatism issue; however they are surprisingly difficult to use.