Microcontroller and Memory Card Survivability in Space Conditions

The USU Materials Physics Group (MPG) has conducted survivability tests of the effects of space and upper atmosphere environments on electronic components including microcontrollers, sensors, and memory cards. High-energy electrons or ionizing radiation from the space radiation environment can cause signal spikes and noisy data in electronics and also cause displacement damage to sensitive electronics on an atomic scale. Microprocessors exposed to radiation can experience different types of failure ranging from soft errors to total system failure. CubeSats are small satellites, can be highly susceptible to radiation damage due to minimal shielding for satellites weighing only a couple kilograms. They are an increasingly popular choice for Low Earth Orbit (LEO) missions because of the low cost of building and deploying them compared to larger, traditional satellites. CubeSats often use microprocessors as the primary controller of taking measurements and operating the satellite. The objective of this research was to monitor a microprocessor (an Arduino Uno, in this case) for evidence of soft errors or permanent failure during radiation exposures of up to ~2 kGy inside the MPG Space Survivability Test (SST) chamber. The electronics functionality was compared to an identical control setup outside the chamber. Attached to the Arduino was a Hall sensor, a photodetector, and an accelerometer as well as a memory card reader. The software ran a self-diagnostic test on the microcontroller and read the incoming data from the sensors. The program also read from the memory cards to show that the interface of the port was working properly and determine if the memory card was damaged