A Production Approach to Environmental Acceptance Testing of Space Vehicle Subsystems

Rockwell International's Multi-Environment Test System (METS) is an environmental simulation facility for thermal cycle and thermal vacuum testing of space vehicle subsystems. The use of a central cryopump and eight radially mounted, independently controlled, test chambers provide test efficiencies not possible in single chamber test systems. Thermal cycle and thermal vacuum testing can be performed in each chamber and thereby further increase the efficiency of the test system.

This article describes the Multi-Environment Test System and its configuration and control system and summarizes its use to support black-box environmental test programs.