Transient flight loads estimation for spacecraft structural design

Quick and effective estimation of transient dynamic flight loads is a critical part of the spacecraft structural design process. In this work, a transient base drive procedure is used to estimate the flight loads on a spacecraft, during the spacecraft design iterations. In this base drive procedure, only the spacecraft dynamic model is used as against a coupled spacecraft-launch vehicle dynamic models. The well established fixed interface modal model representation, with a determinate interface, is used for the spacecraft substructure. The second part of this paper is on a new, constrained optimization based procedure for notching the qualification level sine vibration profile, specified by the launch vehicle organization. The base drive and the “notched” sine vibration profile generation procedures are demonstrated on a spacecraft stick model and a spacecraft structure with solar array panels.