Austin Bodzas 2016-05-14
Validate the performance of new types of radiation resistant memory storing solutions on cube satellites in a space condition.
NASA and other groups plan to have manned missions past LEO. LEO suffers less from radiation than deep space, so more radiation resistant and reliable technology is needed for these missions.
Redundancy - Requires two redundancy chips for every chip needed. This is extra power and extra weight that would be avoided.
Checking - Use of algorithms, parity checks, Hamming code and other programming practices would allow for fighting against single bit corruption. But this becomes more unreasonable as the amount of errors goes up. This also doesn't cover cases of total destructive events.
Shielding - High weight, new resistive technology can help shed the shielding weight to achieve.
Difficult to simulate the wide array of different radiation and ion particles in a laboratory environment. Radiation that can be found in orbit around earth ranges from Galactic Cosmic Rays, Trapped electrons, protons, and various heavy ions. Testing and performing this research in orbit would allow for proper environment testing, and give data as to the flight readiness of a technology.
This payload will be more demanding of Embedded System Devs who are familiar with Real Time Operating Systems (RTOS), EE's, and CE's. It would not have much or anything to do for Mechanical Engineers.
There is a need for students who can help organize the project, technical writing, organize the scientific process. It will take signficiant effort to get in contact with companies for materials, sponshorships and donations.
(Note: not necessarily in order) - recruit needed Majors - find faculty or graduate advising in relevant fields - contact producers of FeRAM, MRAM, PRAM, and other candidate memory types - contact groups who are researching these types of memory. - devise a method to carry out the research and how to implement it as a CubeSat payload. - Create a prototype of the payload - Test the prototype, fix and test again - Create final payload - Test the final payload - find sponsors - Test some more
If we can achieve a further orbit than LEO, we can perform more interesting research.
330-435km | ISS
1,000 - 60,000km | Van Allen Belt
65,000 - 90,000km | Magnetosphere
The Van Allen Belt does dip down to about 200km, known as the South Atlantic Anomaly. Greater orbits can help provide the payload more consistent radiation with more variety.
Galactic Cosmic Ray Simulation
For SPEX members: Internal Memory Testing Payload page