Radiation Hardness Assurance Through System-Level Testing: Risk Acceptance, Facility Requirements, Test Methodology, and Data Exploitation

• Published in: IEEE transactions on nuclear science Vol. 68; no. 5; pp. 958 - 969
• Main Authors: Coronetti, Andrea, Alia, Ruben Garcia, Budroweit, Jan, Rajkowski, Tomasz, Costa Lopes, Israel Da, Niskanen, Kimmo, Soderstrom, Daniel, Cazzaniga, Carlo, Ferraro, Rudy, Danzeca, Salvatore, Mekki, Julien, Manni, Florent, Dangla, David, Virmontois, Cedric, Kerboub, Nourdine, Koelpin, Alexander, Saigne, Frederic, Wang, Pierre, Pouget, Vincent, Touboul, Antoine, Javanainen, Arto, Kettunen, Heikki, Germanicus, Rosine Coq
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York IEEE 01.05.2021; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE); Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
• Subjects: Acceptance tests; Assurance; Commercial off-the-shelf (COTS); Cross-sections; Electronics; Engineering Sciences; Exploitation; facilities; Hadrons; Heavy ions; Irradiation; Neutrons; Performance evaluation; Physics; Protons; Radiation; Radiation effects; radiation hardness assurance; Radiation tests; Reliability aspects; Risk acceptance; Scaling factors; single-event effect (SEE); small satellites; Space missions; Space Physics; System effectiveness; System verification; system-level testing; test methodology; Total ionizing dose; total ionizing dose (TID); Verification; Performance evaluation; Protons; Radiation effects; Radiation hardening (electronics); System-level testing; Neutrons; Total ionizing dose; Total ionizing dose (TID); Facilities; System verification; Space missions; Test methodology; Commercial off-the-shelf (COTS); Single-event effect (SEE); Small satelllites; Risk acceptance; Radiation hardness assurance
• ISSN: 0018-9499; 1558-1578
• DOI: 10.1109/TNS.2021.3061197

Functional verification schemes at a level different from component-level testing are emerging as a cost-effective tool for those space systems for which the risk associated with a lower level of assurance can be accepted. Despite the promising potential, system-level radiation testing can be applied to the functional verification of systems under restricted intrinsic boundaries. Most of them are related to the use of hadrons as opposed to heavy ions. Hadrons are preferred for the irradiation of any bulky system, in general, because of their deeper penetration capabilities. General guidelines about the test preparation and procedure for a high-level radiation test are provided to allow understanding which information can be extracted from these kinds of functional verification schemes in order to compare them with the reliability and availability requirements. The use of a general scaling factor for the observed high-level cross sections allows converting test cross sections into orbit rates.