In-flight measurement of radiation effects on electrical components

Paper number

IAC-06-C2.6.05

Author

Mr. Alejandro Salado, Universidad Politécnica de Valencia, Spain

Year

2006

Abstract

RADMEM is an instrument that will fly as a payload of the SSETI European Student Earth Orbiter (ESEO). It will measure the Single Event Effects (SEE) on memory chips due to radiation inside and outside Van Allen belts.

One of the most critical and different environmental conditions between the Earth and the space is the space radiation. In space, charged particles can hit strongly a spacecraft and may damage considerably to the electronic devices and even affect astronauts. The protection involves a big amount of money in very expensive electrical components and heavy metal boxes for radiation shielding. Furthermore, almost all data in this field is based in analysis (predictions) and ground simulations, but not in-flight. Therefore, the main objective of this experiment is to measure how different shielding materials perform against radiation effects on electrical components, by means of using commercial ones.

The general idea is to have a row of memories with different shielding techniques (metal, different thickness, plastic) which will act as a radiation sensor. The three kinds of SEE that RADMEM will be able to determine are:

      • Single Event Upset (SEU)

      • Single Event Latch-up (SEL)

      • Single Event Burnout (SEB)

The memories will be programmed pre-flight with a reference pattern. A non radiation sensible processor system will then read the memories in order to find any bit that is flipped, determine the kind of SEE (explained later on) and report it to the On-Board computer. 

Since the importance of RADMEM is to measure a particular kind of radiation effect over electronic components, SEE, the processor in charge of controlling the instrument has to be very reliable. In order to achieve this goal, a triple redundant processor solution will be used. A Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA), a microcontroller and a microprocessor with different software architectures will make the same work independently, giving redundant data. In this way, it will also be possible to give an idea of which of the three processors is more reliable.

A prototype will be available for the congress period.

Abstract document

IAC-06-C2.6.05.pdf

Manuscript document

IAC-06-C2.6.05.pdf (🔒 authorized access only).

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