Wireless Payload Thermal-Vacuum Testing for Lunar Harsh Environment

The renewed interest in lunar exploration has triggered the development of novel commercial lunar payloads in recent years. As the design paradigm is shifting from multiple-year design and development of payload using customized devices, to rapid design and prototyping using commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) components, end-to-end testing is essential to ensure success of the mission. Thermal-vacuum (TVAC) testing is one of the key tests performed on the lunar systems. TVAC testing is an experiment to verify the readiness of the hardware and software under the extreme circumstances the payload will experience in the space environment. This paper focuses on the TVAC testing of a hypothetical small wireless lunar sensing payload's communications system, consisting of an electrical power and communications subsystems, on-board computer, and house-keeping and scientific sensors. The experiment follows NASA guidelines and standards to confirm the design requirements and their verification plan. The payload is considered part of a short-duration sensing and telemetry mission in a particular location near-Lunar-surface environment. Therefore, it is designed to withstand the computed thermal and vacuum requirements for the mission conditions: a temperature range from 15 degrees C to 50 degrees C and an atmospheric pressure of 10(-4) Pa.