A method for determining the small-sample test length of carrier rocket

Abstract

To satisfy the demand of test evaluation of carrier rocket, the character of aerocraft and the primary flight error should be well considered. By making full use of tracking data and ground test data, a new method is provided to expand sample size through converting the system error of guidance instruments (SEGI) of special case into standard case. In terms of the prior distribution of the SEGI coefficients, a novel model, named Bayes spline model, is developed for precision evaluation, and its performance is analyzed subsequently. For a given threshold of precision, the test length can be determined by the posterior variance with the afore-mentioned model. Finally, it is proved by theoretical analysis and simulation that this method has clear engineering background and is able to fully exploit the test resources and enables us to draw a more reasonable conclusion.