NEW SPACE vs RADIATION ISSUES

We can observe, from many years now, that Small satellites are designed and flying, at a low cost: The New Space (NS). This evolution of space activity is clearly to reduce the overall cost of access to space, with two main objectives : ( 1 ) To design scientific and/or commercial missions at the lower cost possible, and ( 2 ) To provide a cheap "flight-proven" validation, for of parts and/or sub-systems, for "classic" satellites having a big budget mission. New Space main trends are as follow :

- Massive use of COTS ( Commercial Of The Shelf ) parts, due to the high electrical performance and commercial low cost

- Reduce as much as possible radiation engineering, no radiation expert job position,  and no expensive radiation testings  

The space radiation environment is certainly a major "real" threat to these missions and cannot be "under" or "over" estimated.  

- Underestimation is leading to failure or outage in flight.

- Overestimation is leading to huge unnecessary and unacceptable expenses for the program

Classic Radiation Expert engineering activities are leading to a "failure-free" satellite, but with a high over-cost in terms of engineer hours, software tools, and radiation testings.

The goal of this New Radiation Tool 4 New Space, is to provide, quickly, the main "order of magnitude" for space radiation stress with reasonable accuracy,  on any circular orbit. This is based on more than 30 years of experience in space radiation modeling, calculation, and engineering at the Prime satellite and equipment designer level. All this previous experience has been used here to simplify and elaborate this set of New Radiation Tools 4 New Space, taking into account these main requirements for New Space: Low mission budget & massive use of COTS. This pragmatic approach can provide a level of Radiation Hardness assurance normally associated with big-budget missions.

Main radiation effects: Total Ionizing Dose (TID), Single Event Upset (SEU), Single Event Latchup(SEL), and Total Non-Ionizing Dose (TNID)

A code NT4NS ( New Tools 4 New Space ),  will be available soon for the New Space community. NT4NS include four sub-programs :

(1) TID4NS (Total Ionizing Dose 4 New Space),

(2) SEU4NS (Single Event Upset 4 New Space),

(3) SEL4NS (Single Event Latchup 4 New Space)

(4) TNID4NS (Total Non-Ionizing Dose 4 New Space)

 NT4NS has been elaborated to draw these radiation figures slides, but more detailed information can be provided to get a more accurate result

If you are interested to get a copy, just drop  a message HERE

Reminder: The main goal of this tool, NT4NS, is to provide you an order of magnitude (worst case), not the exact value you can calculate with sophisticated tools based on expensive radiation testings, after engineering hours.

<<< TO GET A COPY OF THESE TOOLS, JUST SEND US A REQUEST BY EMAIL >>>