ShockSat Testbed for the Advancement of Shock Prediction

The reliability of pyroshock devices for separating hardware has led to the extensive use of pyroshock devices in space applications. Unfortunately, pyroshock waves can rapidly travel through a structure and create dynamic responses that break sensitive mechanisms and electronic equipment. Therefore, accurate predictions of how the pyroshock initiation excites the structure away from the source are needed for the design of sensitive items. However, accurate pyroshock prediction is difficult. Progress in analysis has been slow because of the complexity of the problem and the proprietary nature of most pyroshock applications. To accelerate the development and presentation of shock prediction, the ShockSat testbed was created. The purpose of ShockSat is to provide the research community with high-quality open-source data that can be used to develop or demonstrate shock prediction methodologies. This includes pyroshock response data on a spacecraft-like structure. This paper describes the ShockSat system, the provided finite element model, and the acquired data, all of which are available to the world community to facilitate research and improve shock prediction methods. Readers are encouraged to participate by downloading and using the data.