The Space Materials Testhouse provides assistance to ESTEC (European Space Research and Technology Centre in Noordwijk, NL) in characterization and qualification of materials and processes of industrial suppliers. The objectives of this collaboration is the assessment of new technology for space missions in advance and the investigations of failures and anomalies in present space missions.
Testing from material to flight hardware:
First, materials are to be screened on their basic properties relevant for usage in space (for example outgassing). With this basic tests, the materials are selected which are considered to manufacture breadboard- and engineering models. These “BBs” and “EMs” are to be tested again on their behavior before selecting the most promising candidates to be used as flight hardware. Flight hardware can be tested a thermal vacuum chamber attached to a clean room class 10 000.
Material tests & material selection:
Breadboard- & engineering model tests:
Testing of flight hardware: