Reliability testing for GW systems

Extract

Reliability testing for GW systems can be considered as comprising five categories of test:

1. 1. Development testing, including environmental testing, to ensure that the design is capable of performing to the technical requirements.

2. 2. Reliability demonstration testing, to provide assurance that the reliability requirements will be, or are being, met.

3. 3. Production Testing.

4. 4. Acceptance testing, to provide assurance that production missiles are achieving the required reliability.

5. 5. In-service testing, to ensure that reliability is maintained during Service conditions.

This paper surveys the particular problems experienced when applying these categories of reliability testing to guided weapons. The paper considers only the equipment in the missile, and not GW sub-systems fitted to launch vehicles, since such sub-systems are basically the same as other avionic, ground or ship-based systems from the reliability test point of view.