Assembly Integration and Test Center Activities in Turkey

For developing countries, which plan to develop and produce national satellites as a strategic opportunity to become one of the leading countries in space competition, one of the most important investment areas is to set and successfully operate an "Assembly, Integration and Test Center" (AIT). From AIT center point of view, it is critical to choose the right time for starting up the AIT facility work. There is great benefit of planning AIT facility in parallel with the planning of "national satellite projects" together with the characteristics, types and specifications of these satellites. Almost all assembly work, qualification tests for the satellite subsystems and the satellite itself and acceptance of the satellite shall be done within the AIT facility. Qualification and acceptance tests have some major differences in terms of test types or test conditions (e.g. test times, test cycles, test parameters, etc.) These test conditions and related parameters are chosen taking into consideration the space environmental conditions of the satellite in the orbit. Every orbit has different environmental conditions. Environmental conditions for the satellite orbit in outer space are generally parameters of the orbit altitude, satellite position and local time and some other stochastic events. Due to their impact on satellite design, manufacturing process and whole useful life, detailed environmental effect analysis must be performed on one or more satellite models. In this paper, space environmental effects on satellites with required test devices are explained, and the works needed to establish a national AIT center is defined in the conclusion part.