Speaker
Description
Single Event Effects (SEEs) represent a major reliability concern for spacecraft electronics, especially in highly dynamic space weather environments. We present a demonstrator using SEE-U (https://www.space-suite.com/see-u/ ), an open-source tool developed by Artenum in collaboration with ONERA, originally designed to model Single Event Upset (SEU) cross-sections and compute Soft Error Rates (SERs) from constant radiation environments, realistic device geometries, and measured or modeled SEE cross-sections. The tool has been extensively validated in the past, with results published at RADECS 2023, IAC 2019, and MDPI Electronics 2023.
In this work, we extend the use of SEE-U from constant radiation fields to time-varying environments relevant to space weather applications. Previous European efforts, such as the PAGER project, have successfully linked space weather forecasts with surface and internal charging risk models, providing daily risk maps accessible online (https://forecast.space-suite.com/ ). Inspired by this success, we investigate the feasibility of embedding SEE-U into similar workflows for predicting SEE-related risks.
As a proof-of-concept, we simulate the proton-induced SER in a 90 nm SRAM device onboard BepiColombo during the 16–18 February 2022 solar energetic particle event. The SEE cross-section is modeled within SEE-U, accounting for direct ionization effects and the angular dependence of incident protons. The calculated time-resolved SER is then compared against in-flight anomaly reports published for the same period. Preliminary results show a remarkable agreement between predicted and observed anomalies, highlighting the potential of SEE-U as a building block for operational space weather services.
We will discuss the perspectives for automating SEE-U within a generalized workflow, enabling real-time integration with space weather forecasts. Such a service would provide timely and mission-specific SER risk predictions, where SEE-U is continuously fed by near-real-time space weather forecasts (e.g. solar energetic particles, galactic cosmic ray variations). This would allow operators to anticipate periods of elevated error rates in onboard memories or processors and take preventive actions, such as reconfiguring systems, adjusting mission planning, or activating fault-tolerant modes. Beyond individual missions, integrating SEE-U into a broader operational workflow would contribute to Space Situational Awareness (SSA) and Space Safety.
