Traditional testing methodologies often result in spacecraft equipment undergoing vibration testing that is harsher than the launch environment it must survive. This leads to over designing as items must be designed to survive the testing rather than launch. A two part alternative testing methodology is proposed that seeks to reduce the amount of overtesting (i.e. trying to match the loads a piece of equipment experiences when it is coupled to the spacecraft and when it is tested in isolation on a shaker) by finding a testing set up that better matches the higher level testing requirements. The first part seeks to determine the optimum testing angle - instead of testing in the traditional orthogonal directions. The second part finds the optimum location to add a second vibration source. The later part of the methodology is based on the correlation of the Operational Deflecting Shapes (ODS) of the piece of equipment between the two aforementioned configurations. A case study is also presented that demonstrates the benefits of this methodology.
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