VEGA LAUNCH VEHICLE DYNAMIC ENVIRONMENT: FLIGHT EXPERIENCE AND

QUALIFICATION STATUS
C. Di Trapani (1), D. Fotino (2), E. Mastrella (3), D. Bartoccini (4), M. Bonnet (5)

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ABSTRACT different load sources had been identified as
dimensioning. For the sinusoidal environment, the solid
VEGA Launch Vehicle (LV) during flight is equipped
rocket motor ignition transient and the first stage
with more than 400 sensors (pressure transducers,
pressure oscillation during steady state; for the random
accelerometers, microphones, strain gauges…) aimed to
environment, the lift off and the transonic flight phase;
catch the physical phenomena occurring during the
for the shock environment, the separation phases (stages
mission. Main objective of these sensors is to verify that
separation, fairing jettison, etc…).
the flight conditions are compliant with the launch
On this basis, VEGA launch vehicle and payload
vehicle and satellite qualification status and to
dimensioning dynamic environment has been defined
characterize the phenomena that occur during flight.
and used to qualify all the components.
During VEGA development, several test campaigns
During flight the launch vehicle is equipped with more
have been performed in order to characterize its
than 400 sensors (pressure transducers, accelerometers,
dynamic environment and identify the worst case
microphones, strain gauges…) aimed to catch the
conditions, but only with the flight data analysis is
physical phenomena occurring during the mission. Main
possible to confirm the worst cases identified and check
objective of these sensors is to verify that the flight
the compliance of the operative life conditions with the
conditions are compliant with the launch vehicle and
components qualification status.
satellite qualification status and to deeply characterize
Scope of the present paper is to show a comparison of
the phenomena that occur during flight.
the sinusoidal dynamic phenomena that occurred during
In this paper, after giving evidence of the verification of
VEGA first and second flight and give a summary of the
the dynamic worst cases identified during VEGA
launch vehicle qualification status.
development, the comparison between the first two
VEGA flight results and the specification is given
1. INTRODUCTION
pointing out VEGA dynamic qualification status.
VEGA Launch Vehicle (LV) is the small European
expendable launcher developed by the European Space 2. DYNAMIC ENVIRONMENT
Agency. It is designed to deliver from 300 to 1500 kg
All the different events occurring during the Launch
payloads into Polar and low Earth orbits. VEGA is a
Vehicle life can be considered as “dynamic events”, in
single body launcher (136 tons of weight, and 36 m in
fact from the moment when the Launch Vehicle is left
length), which consists of three solid rocket stages, the
alone on the Pad, its interaction with the external
P80 FW first stage (97 tons of weight, 3.05 m in
environment before, such as the wind, or with the
diameter and 11,7 m in length), the Zefiro 23 second
induced environment later, such as the first stage motor
stage (26 tons of weight, 1.9 m in diameter and 8,5 m in
jet and the refractions with the ground infrastructures,
length), the Zefiro 9 third stage (11.5 tons of weight, 1.9
generates a motion of the vehicle itself which superpose
m in diameter and 4,4 m in length), and a liquid rocket
to the mission kinematics profile, ascent trajectory,
upper module called AVUM.
velocity, accelerations, etc., all along the mission time.
VEGA qualification maiden flight and second flight
This motion of the vehicle can be characterised in terms
have been successfully performed on February 13th
of amplitude, frequency content, duration according to
2012 and May 8th 2013 respectively. Main difference
the specific event and response features.
between the first and second flight is that, for the first
In particular three different kinds of dynamic
one has been used a single payload configuration, while
environment can be distinguished:
on the second one has been used a multi payload
- Sinusoidal: low frequency vibration,
configuration.
- Random: broadband vibration (medium and high
During the 10 years of VEGA development, several test
frequency),
campaigns have been performed in order to characterize
- Shock: high frequency transient events,
its dynamic environment and identify the worst case
conditions. On the basis of the environment of interest,
_______________________________________
Proc. ‘13th European Conf. on Spacecraft Structures, Materials & Environmental Testing’,
Braunschweig, Germany, 1–4 April 2014 (ESA SP-727, June 2014)
VEGA dynamic environment is defined in term of
acceleration for the sinusoidal and shock environment
and in terms of Sound Pressure Level (SPL) for the
random events (random environment is mainly induced
by acoustics).
In this paper for such of brevity, only the sinusoidal low
frequency vibration environment during the solid rocket
motors flight phases is addressed.
3. LOW FREQUENCY ENVIRONMENT
The low frequency vibration environment is generally
characterised by quite high displacements and
associated loads. It is generally dimensioning for LV
appendages and secondary structures.
The main events contributing to the generation of this
kind of environment are transient phenomena of short
duration (some tenths-hundreds of milliseconds), such
as lift-off, motor ignitions wind, gust and blast wave,
and periodic phenomena of medium duration (some
seconds) such as pressure and flow oscillations.
In some unlikely and unfortunate case, the genesis of
this environment can be linked to the stabilization of
periodic loadings. This is the case for instance of
- vortex shedding setting, which could involve the
whole launcher response, in stand by ground phase
under wind excitation, or the internal motor
combustion and related thrust oscillations, in the
case of P80 Filament Winding (FW) Solid Rocket
Motor (SRM),
- aeroelastic interactions, such as global/local
buffeting phenomena, local flutter (on mono-body
LV),
- couplings between different LV parts or
subsystems, as it could be the case of coupling
between nozzle actuations (involving main
pendulum frequency) and P/L or LV main bending
modes,
- POGO phenomenon,
Obviously the periodic loading setting shall be avoided,
whenever possible by design (e.g. TVC DFF, frequency
decoupling, analysis of aeroelastic stability), because it
is the most feared dynamic event in general since it
could be diverging and it could generate high
displacement/acceleration levels.
3.1 DIMENSIONING CASES IDENTIFICATION
AND VERIFICATION
In the early phase of the design and development the
characterisation of the VEGA low frequency dynamic
environment has been achieved only by numerical
simulation. During the course of the development the
numerical calculations have been supported by
empirical test results such as SRM firings, scaled Lift-
off acoustic tests, wind tunnel tests, functional and
environmental tests (acoustics, vibration, and stage
separation), depending on the environment of interest.
Regarding the low frequency environment, for VEGA
LV, during the development, the following phases were
identified as significant for the generation of low
frequency environment in axial direction during the
solid rocket motors flight phases (in chronological
order):
- First stage flight:
o Lift-off: the main sources of low frequency
vibration response, of the LV structures and
appendages, are the blast wave due to the P80 jet
interaction with the Pad infrastructures, the
detachment from Pad of the vehicle itself, the
wind, and the effect on the LV of the motor
internal ballistics in the thrust set up phase.
o P80 steady state Pressure Oscillations (PO) (1st
and 2nd acoustic modes): this event, linked to
SRM internal vortex shedding setting and
consequent stabilization of internal pressure
oscillations (with related thrust oscillations), is a
periodic loading one. Four bouffée called B0,
B1, B2 and B3 have been identified for the P80
SRM.
- Second stage flight
o Z23 ignition: the effect on the LV of the motor
internal ballistics in the thrust set up phase is a
transient condition that produces significant low
frequency dynamic response.
- Third stage flight
o Z9 ignition: the effect on the LV of the motor
internal ballistics in the thrust set up phase is a
transient condition that produces significant low
frequency dynamic response.
This load cases were considered critical for all over the
LV main interfaces (I/F): connections SRMs/interstages,
AVUM/payload adapter interface and payload adapter
satellite interface.
In particular regarding the phenomenon strictly
connected to the SRMs internal ballistic (thrust set up
phase, and pressure oscillation during steady state), the
logic followed to identify and then verify the
dimensioning load cases, during the LV development up
to the flights is briefly schematized in Fig.1. At the very
beginning a characterization of the SRM ballistic and
consequent induced dynamic environment has been
performed by the analysis of the sensors installed on the
item under test during the static firing test. On the base
of the experimental data, the LV subcomponents
numerical models for the simulation of the
dimensioning load cases, mainly Finite Elements
Models (FEM) for the dynamic aspects, have been
refined and then integrated in the complete LV FEM
(see [1] and [2] as an example). It is used to perform the
so-called launcher-satellite Coupled Loads Analysis
(CLA) that are aimed at computing the dynamic
environment for the most severe load cases in flight.
From the simulation at launch vehicle level of the
dynamic dimensioning load cases identified for the
subcomponent, the LV dynamic dimensioning load
cases have been selected and used to define numerically
the LV qualification environment. Obviously the
scattering of the load cases has been properly taken into
account in the process
At the end the flights data analysis were used to
verify/confirm the correct selection of the dimensioning
load cases.

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As a matter of fact, the accelerometers at LV main

interfaces (see Fig.2) have been analysed all over the
LV flight.

As detailed example, the waterfall plot of the equivalent

sine of the axial acceleration at P80 forward flange
during the 1st stage flight is reported in Fig.3. The lift
off and the pressure oscillation phases come into
evidence as the events inducing the higher sinusoidal
loads in terms of acceleration transmitted to the upper
part of the launch vehicle. )LJXUH$FFHOHUDWLRQDW3IRUZDUGIODQJH:DWHUIDOO
Their identification as source of the phenomena is clear SORWRIWKHHTXLYDOHQWVLQH
by looking at the analysis of the dynamic pressure
transducer installed in the P80 combustion chamber
(Fig.4).
Moreover, relevant acceleration levels are identified
also between 30 and 70 seconds of flight, corresponding
to VEGA transonic flight phase. In this case the nature
of the load does not induce periodical vibration, in fact
not a specific frequency can be identified.
As a confirmation of this justification, the microphones
located on the external part of the launch vehicle have
been analysed confirming an increase of the acoustic
noise during this flight phase (see Fig.5).

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By looking at the waterfall plot of the equivalent sine in

axial direction all over the launch vehicle interfaces and
all over the flight phases (see Fig.6 and Fig.7 as
examples) the dimensioning sinusoidal load cases
identified during VEGA development are globally
confirmed.

Going deeply in detail, Fig.8 shows the equivalent sine

of the accelerations in axial direction for all the
sinusoidal dimensioning flight phases during solid
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rocket motors functioning. Results are reported for the
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P80 forward flange and the Z9 forward flange. It can be
noted that, looking deeply at the results, lift off and P80
pressure oscillations as a matter of fact are
dimensioning for the launch vehicle lower main
interfaces (up to Z23 after flange) but not for the
induced accelerations levels at launch vehicle upper
main interfaces.
Only with the analysis of the first qualification flight,
this evidence came out evidencing the necessity of a
further refinement of the system numerical models (LV
dynamic FEM). In fact the comparison between
numerical and flight data put into evidence an
overestimation of the acceleration induced from the
solid rocket motors of the first and second stage to the
upper part of the launch vehicle. Actually a specific
working group has been set up on this topic to further
refine the numerical models. In fact it has to be pointed
out that also in the frame of the mission analysis of a
launch vehicle and the spacecraft, the CLA aimed at
computing their dynamic environment for the most
severe load cases in flight can be performed only by
using a numerical approach.

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 qualification levels (flight expected plus
qualification margins) without degradation or
failure.

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As an example Fig.10 reports the comparison between

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VLQXVRLGDOGLPHQVLRQLQJORDGFDVHV test, i.e. the I/S3AVUM vibration test) data in axial
direction and the flight expected levels from LV
4. QUALIFICATION STATUS AND FLIGHT numerical CLA, demonstrating qualification. In any
EXPERIENCE case, it can be stated that the minimum margin is in
correspondence of the P80 pressure oscillations (I
During Vega development, System Tests have been mode), but on the base of the considerations performed
performed at “Assy” level in order to verify, at with the analysis of the flight data, it is strongly
qualification level, the stage design and layout, and to increased.
validate the dynamic environment used to develop and
qualify equipments and subsystems (as an example see
[3], [4] and [5]).
In a more general way, the system dynamic
Qualification Tests mainly concur to:
- demonstrate Stage and Subsystem level compliance
with system environment defined in the LV
specifications,
- validate the design margins, at qualification level, of
structural design under dynamic environment.
In particular, to demonstrate the Qualification the
following verifications are achieved (see Fig.9):
1. Verification that tested profiles comply with:
a. Equipment qualification status
(qualification levels envelop
responses obtained), )LJXUH'HOWD8&0(&TXDOLILFDWLRQDVVHVVPHQWZLWK
b. structure attachment points, supports &/$
and secondary structures
dimensioning (QSL are covered or In fact the results coming from VV01 and VV02
amplification factors are lower than analysis show that the launch vehicle specification
expected) cover the flight environment with relatively high
2. Correlation of FEM model and update of Stage margins principally on the P80 PO bands.
CLA with real excitations (from firing test
measurements) have been carried out to verify
validity of qualification levels obtained
3. The qualification of LV stage layout and
Interstage secondary structures to dynamics is
declared based on the demonstration that the
stage (equipped interstage) has survived the
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5. CONCLUSIONS
A general view of VEGA launch vehicle dynamic
environment has been given. For such of brevity only
the sinusoidal environment in axial direction has been
faced in the frame of this paper.
The verification of the worst load cases identified
during VEGA development has been performed by
flight results analysis. As a final step the launch vehicle
qualification status has been briefly depicted and
assessed. Flight data analyses show an additional
potential increase of the margins of the launch vehicle
upper part mainly concerning the first stage load cases.
As a conclusion of the work performed in the Vega
Program, in relation with the qualification to the low
frequency dynamic environment, it can be assessed that
the qualification of LV design with the environment can
be demonstrated.

6. REFERENCES

[1] Perugini, P., Mataloni, A., Tessitore, N., Cospite,

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