{"id":12297,"date":"2024-08-14T12:20:48","date_gmt":"2024-08-14T12:20:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/topat10.com\/?p=12297"},"modified":"2024-08-14T12:20:48","modified_gmt":"2024-08-14T12:20:48","slug":"this-gargantuan-lab-simulates-blasting-satellites-into-space","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/topat10.com\/?p=12297","title":{"rendered":"This Gargantuan Lab Simulates Blasting Satellites Into Space"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Satellites go through<\/span> a lot. As they hurtle around our planet at up to 17,000 miles an hour they must cope with the extreme vacuum of space and vast temperature swings, all while trying to precisely train their antennas back to Earth. And that\u2019s after launch, where they\u2019ll be shaken like a can of paint and blasted with deafening noise.<\/p>\n

To get them ready for this ordeal, all satellites<\/a> are painstakingly tested before dispatch, ensuring every loose bolt is tightened and all the electrics are in exquisite working order. That used to require trips to multiple locations for different tests, but in the UK, the newly opened National Satellite Test Facility in Oxfordshire offers a full satellite health check under one roof.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe industry said they needed a one-stop-shop where they can do all of their testing for their large complex satellites in one place,\u201d says Sarah Beardsley, the director of the UK government-funded Rutherford Appleton Laboratory Space, which runs the new facility based at the Harwell Science and Innovation Campus. \u201cThis is the result of years of hard work.\u201d<\/p>\n

Construction began in late 2018, after the UK government announced it would invest \u00a399 million ($126 million) in the NSTF to develop \u201ca world-class facility\u201d for testing satellites. Originally set to begin operations in 2020, the project was hit by delays, including Covid<\/a>, that saw its grand opening pushed back to May 2024. Multiple satellites will be put through their paces every year, with Airbus set to be the first customer to use the facility for its new Skynet 6A communications satellite in July.<\/p>\n

There are four testing areas inside the NSTF. The first you come to when you walk in\u2014after donning protective garments to keep the facility as clean as possible\u2014is the huge vacuum test chamber around which the whole building had to be constructed. \u201cThere\u2019s no door big enough to fit it through,\u201d says Beardsley. Inside this chamber, pumps can lower the pressure to just 0.00001 millibars, mimicking the vacuum of space, while a nitrogen coolant system can raise and lower the temperature between -180 and 130 degrees Celsius, the extreme range a satellite might experience as it moves in and out of sunlight during orbit.<\/p>\n

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