Preparation of standard electrical testability provisions for space equipment. Volume 1: Executive summary

The requirements for standard electrical testability provisions for space equipments are established, in order to promote their reusability. The advantages of automatic tests and of the use of standard test data buses with high level test programming languages are highlighted. Equipment test provisions must be met in a unified test concept, applied when writing specifications. Methods of electrically interfacing the equipment with the proposed test system are discussed, and it is shown that using standard functional interfaces and advanced VLSI circuits provides substantial benefits. A modular approach is recommended so that only the test provisions which are necessary for a given mission are implemented in the equipment.