CIRA Space Qualification Team is gearing up for an innovative challenge with the DFAN (Direct Field Acoustic Noise) project, a state-of-the-art facility for qualifying satellites and components against acoustic loads during space launch. 

In a DFAN facility, an intense diffuse acoustic field, with levels up to and beyond 150 dB (OASPL), is generated by arrays of high-power and linearity speakers positioned around the test object, complemented by a sophisticated HW/SW MIMO closed-loop control system with arrays of microphones distributed within the test volume. 

During the recent DFAN Testing Master Class, held at Siemens Digital Industries Software (Leuven, BE), the CIRA team had the opportunity to engage in all phases of a real test: system design, test engineering, optimization and preparation of the test setup, execution of the test on an actual satellite model (QinetiQ Space's PROBA-V), and data processing for the test report preparation. The DFAN facility's Module A, set to become operational at the beginning of 2025, will be realized with the co-financing of ASI in the PNRR Space Factory 4.0 project.