Aerospace
PACE Yourself: U.S. Marine Band Tries to Match Spacecraft’s Acoustic Levels
The Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud ocean Ecosystem (PACE) mission Systems Engineer Gary Davis has enlisted the help of the U.S. Marine Band to see if the musicians can match the acoustic levels the spacecraft is subjected to in testing. Thirty-seven members of the band and Davis set up at Goddard Space Flight Center on May 3 to perform, with the acoustics chamber otherwise empty. The full level it gets up to is 140 decibels; watch this video to see how the band stacked up.
More From SAE Media Group
Tech Briefs
How to Manufacture Your Own Spacecraft
Photonics & Imaging Technology INSIDER
NASA’s First Two-Way End-to-End Laser Communications Relay System
Aerospace INSIDER
NASA Demonstrates X-ray Navigation in Space
Tech Briefs
Launching for America
NASA Spinoff
A Huge Development for Tiny Satellites
Aerospace INSIDER
Oscillating Heat Pipes Tested for Use in Space
NASA Spinoff
NASA Helps Make Connections in Air and Space
Tech Briefs
Videos of the Month
Tech Briefs
Building Technology to Clean Up Space
Tech Briefs
7 Questions with Astronaut Eileen Collins
Aerospace INSIDER
NASA Tests Artemis II Crew Seat and Flight Suit
NASA Spinoff
Commercial Space: NASA Has an App for That
Aerospace INSIDER
NASA to Fly Personnel on Suborbital Spacecraft
Tech Briefs
NASA’s Ruggedized Video Camera Ready for Earth
Aerospace INSIDER
Virgin Galactic Reports on Pin Detachment From Recent Spaceflight
NASA Spinoff
Redefining the 'Rugged' Video Camera
Aerospace INSIDER
Abort Motor for NASA’s Orion Spacecraft Successfully Tested
Aerospace & Defense Tech Briefs
NASA's Orion Spacecraft Is Complete, Assembled, and Ready for Integration Ahead of Final Testing
NASA Spinoff
The Science of the Perfect Cup for Coffee
Transcript
00:00:03 Now fully assembled, the PACE spacecraft nears completion of its final environmental tests at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. These tests ensure the spacecraft can survive the rigors of launch and orbit early next year. The spacecraft and instruments are all together assembled in this chamber behind me, and we are blasting them with acoustic energy to look at the response of the different parts of the observatory and make sure nothing gets damaged. And the reason we do this is to simulate the launch environment for the vibration in the acoustic range during launch. Today the full level that we get up to is almost 140 decibels, which is very loud.
00:00:47 It would definitely damage your hearing. It's like the same kind of noise you'd hear if you're close to an airplane with a jet engine or a very loud rock concert near the speakers. For years, I've been witnessing tests in this chamber for various missions, and I always see the large speakers in there, and they're shaped like cones, which remind me of bells of brass instruments. And so I thought, you know, what could we do to have a group of musicians play and see if they could equal the sound that we simulate during one of our launch acoustics tests. [”Also Sprach Zarathustra” plays]
00:02:30 The Marine Band didn’t quite match the same sound levels PACE withstood, but made a different lasting impression... The musicians composed a fanfare for PACE’s journey. [loud drum hit followed by a swell of orchestral music]