PREDICTING COSMIC RADIATION IMPACT ON SPACECRAFT ELECTRONICS USING AI

Abstract

Ionizing radiation sources such as Solar Energetic Particles and Galactic Cosmic Radiation may cause unexpected errors in imaging and communication systems of satellites in the Space environment, as reported in the previous literature. In this study, the temporal variation of the speckle values on Sentinel 1 satellite images were compared with the cosmic ray intensity/count data, to analyze the effects which may occur in the electromagnetic wave signals or electronic system. Sentinel 1 Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) images nearby to the cosmic ray stations and acquired between January 2015 and December 2019 were processed. The median values of the differences between speckle filtered and original image were calculated on Google Earth Engine Platform per month. The monthly median “noise” values were compared with the cosmic ray intensity/count data acquired from the stations. Eight selected stations’ data show that there are significant correlations between cosmic ray intensities and the speckle amounts. The Pearson correlation values vary between 0.62 and 0.78 for the relevant station. For satellites in the space environment, there are many factors that will affect the performance or lifetime of these satellites. Sun or galactic radiation is one among these factors. Due to the high amount of ionizing radiation in the space environment, it is important to examine this radiation for all kinds of space missions. Galactic cosmic radiation and energetic particles from the Sun (solar cosmic rays) are the main sources of this ionizing radiation. Total ionizing dose effect is expressed as the amount of energy generated by the charged particle while passing through the semiconductor or insulator zone of the electronic device. Singlevent upset can cause zeroing or rewriting in digital, analog or optical components. Single event burnout can cause noises or frozen bits in charged-connected devices (CCDs) and displacement damage that could lead to deterioration of device features and materials. Electrostatic discharges can cause operational difficulties due to the deterioration of the components of the spacecraft, and damage to the electronics is the main damages that these sources can cause to the electronic system of the satellite.