Power Consumption for Active Acoustic Control of Launch Vehicle Payload Fairings

Vibroacoustics during space vehicle launch has been blamed for as many as 60% of first day satellite failures. At the Air Force Research Laboratory in Albuquerque NM USA, modeling and analysis was performed to determine the feasibility of monolithic piezoceramic actuators and active acoustic control to reduce noise transmission during launch of the OSP launch vehicle with a hypothetical composite fairing. Voltage, power and energy were studied as a function of transmission reduction. The conclusion reached for the case explored in depth was that off-the-shelf monolithic piezoceramic actuators did not have sufficient control authority to reduce noise transmission at realistic sound levels.