DECEMBER 2025AEROSPACEDEFENSEREVIEW.COM8In My OpinionRADIATION HARDENING ISN'T GOING AWAY EVEN FOR PROLIFERATED LOW-EARTH ORBIT, IT'S ALL ABOUT AVAILABILITYBy Geoffrey Torrington, Space Systems Technical Director, BAE SystemsSpace is new again. After 20 years of nearly static enterprises, the last decade has brought a flurry of activity from new organisations, like the U.S. Space Force and operators including SpaceX and Planet, to new objectives such as joint all-domain operations. Low-Earth orbit (LEO) has swelled with Geoffrey Torringtonnew satellite constellations that use massive proliferation to counter Keplerian motion, which assures that any single satellite is usually in the wrong place at the wrong time. But one thing about space hasn't changed at all. Savvy customers want their mission delivered when it counts every time. As a society, we depend on space assets for national security, navigation, weather forecasting, banking and communications, to name a few things. So, operational availability matters.Yet, commercial microelectronics, commonly referred to simply as `chips,' are not designed to handle the harsh space environment. Cosmic rays and trapped particles in the Van Allen radiation belts can strike the chips and change zeros-to-ones and ones-to-zeros. These Single Event Effects (SEE) can result in data corruption, functional disruption, or physical destruction. The accumulation of a Total Ionizing Dose (TID) causes transistors to short out over time. We have generally observed that microelectronics at finer geometries are becoming more resistant to TID at the expense of increased susceptibility to SEE. Companies like BAE Systems, with decades of experience in developing radiation-hardened electronics for space applications, have been at the forefront of addressing these challenges. From standard components to single-board computers and payloads, space missions require radiation-hardened flight controls, security and communications to deliver the effects that customers can consistently depend on.Radiation-Hardened By Design (RHBD) uses the same processes at the same foundries as commercial electronics but adds design features in silicon to mitigate data loss, upset and destruction. By applying RHBD techniques to commercial chip designs, such as processor cores and analog-to-digital converters, you create purpose-built chips which provide the
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