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Welcome, to NASA's spacecraft chamber of horrors!
Here spacecrafts and components suffer through a grueling battery of tests.
All in an effort to see if they are truly capable of performing their mission
and surviving the rigors of space flight.
As this centrifuge whips them around, they experience the kind of G-forces,
or gravitational forces, that they can expect to see on launch.
Now, this centrifuge is not for human use.
It can go up to 30Gs, which is way more than a human being can stand.
They get shaken on any number of vibration tables
to simulate the vibration during launch.
There's no sound in space, but the ride up can be noisy enough to break things.
Inside this acoustics chamber, the instruments are blasted with noise
in order to make sure they'll be able to survive the rocket trip to space.
Some, like the new SLIC Carrier, come to this static load test facility.
Some call it, The Rack.
Inside this frame, hydraulic actuators, operated by a team of engineers,
push and pull the composite payload carrier,
testing its ability to withstand the stresses of launch and reentry.
Based on the results from the thousand strain gauges placed on the carrier,
it passed.
In the electromagnetic interference test chamber
radio waves are blasted at the instrument to see if they will disrupt its operations.
The instruments are also tested to see if they produce any radio waves
that could interfere with other instruments or systems.
This is the space environment chamber.
Inside this enormous tank spacecrafts and instruments
like the new Wide Field Camera 3 experience the harshness of space.
The air is pumped out to simulate the vacuum of space
and then the real testing begins.
This chamber can heat to a blazing 300 degrees Fahrenheit.
And then drop to -310 degrees Fahrenheit.
In here the spacecraft must endure the huge temperature extremes
it will experience in orbit, as it travels from full sunshine
to the darkness of Earth's shadow.
A typical test can take many weeks.
If a spacecraft survives the torture in here
it's pretty much ready for space.
If not, better it breaks here, than after launch.
Here we have the ability to understand the problem,
correct it, and test again.
All this testing helps reduce the risk of failure on orbit
and increase the spacecraft's potential for scientific success!