Connecting Mission Profiles and Radiation Vulnerability Assessment

Radiation vulnerability assessment early in spacecraft development is cheaper and faster than in late development phases. RGENTIC and SEAM are two software platforms that can be coupled to provide this type of early assessment. Specifically, RGENTIC is a tool that outputs descriptions of radiation risks based on a selected mission environment and the system’s electronic part portfolio, while SEAM models how radiation-induced faults in electronic parts propagate through a system. In this work, we propose a spacecraft evaluation flow where RGENTIC’s outputs, which are radiation vulnerabilities of electronic parts for a given mission, become inputs to SEAM, resulting in an automatic part-type template palette presented to users so that they can easily begin modeling the occurrence and propagation of radiation-induced faults in their spacecraft. In this context, fault propagation modeling shows how radiation effects impact the spacecraft’s electronics. The interface between these platforms can be streamlined through the creation of a SEAM global part-type library with templates based on radiation effects in part-type families such as sensors, processors, voltage regulators, and so forth. Several of the part-types defined in RGENTIC have been integrated into SEAM templates. Ultimately, all 66+ part-types from the RGENTIC look-up table will be included in the SEAM global part library. Once accomplished, the part templates can be used to populate each project-specific part library in SEAM, ensuring all RGENTIC’s part-types are represented, and the radiation effects are consistent between the two. The harmonization process between RGENTIC and SEAM begins as follows: designers input a detailed knowledge of their system and mission into RGENTIC, which then outputs a generic part-type list that associates each part-type with potential radiation concerns. The list is then downloaded in a SEAM-readable file, which SEAM uses to populate the initially blank project with the part templates that correspond to RGENTIC’s output. The final product is a system fault model using a project-specific radiation effect part library. The radiation effects considered in the part library are associated with three categories of radiation-environment issues: single event effects (SEE), total ionizing dose (TID), and displacement damage dose (DDD). An example part-type is the discrete LED, which has been functionally decomposed into input power and output light. It has a single possible radiation-induced fault that is associated with DDD, which causes degraded brightness and is observed on the output. Overall, designers will benefit from a coordination of these two tools because it simplifies the initial definition of the project in SEAM. This is especially the case for new users, since the necessary radiation models for their parts are available before modeling commences. Furthermore, starting from a duplicate of an existing project decreases the amount of time and effort required to develop project-specific models. Incorporating RGENTIC’s table of part-types resolves these issues and provides a streamlined process for creating system radiation fault models. Consequently, spacecraft designers can identify radiation problems early in the design cycle and fix them with lower cost and less effort than in later design stages.