Small-Scale Instrumentation for Space Borne Radiation Detection and Imaging

Operasjonelt romvær oversikt og prognoser krever et stort sett av datapunkter i sanntid. I dag er det bare noen komplekse instrumenter som overvåker energiske partikler i rommet. I fremtiden er det ønskelig å ha et distribuert nettverk av romvær instrumenter. Med nanosatellitter og miniatyrisert instrumenter kan dette målet lykkes. Romvær påvirker grunn og satellitt infrastruktur. Derfor er det viktig å ha muligheter for å prognostisere romvær som vi gjør med vanlig værvarsel i dag. Dette prosjektet bruker en ny integrert krets for å undersøke og utvikle et nytt instrument for energetisk partikkeldeteksjon. Innen det nåværende prosjektet er den integrerte kretsen karakterisert og integrert på arctic satellite broadband mission (ASBM). Endelig er det konstruert en romstrålemonitor prototype som gjør det mulig å verifisere partikkeltransportsimuleringer og demonstrere evner. Instrumentets bruk inkluderer dosimetri, atmosfære-, partikkelfysikk og romværovervåking.

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Small and nanosatellites are an emerging sector in space industry. Such satellite platforms require miniature instrumentation with small form factor, low-mass, low-cost, low power consumption and rapid development cycles. Today's consumer electronics are based on highly integrated electrical circuits and state-of-the-art technology. These standards are not used for space missions at present due to missing experience and inherent issues in a space environment such as radiation effects. This project will use a novel hybrid approach to develop a new instrument for radiation detection and imaging. Custom radiation-hard microelectronics will be combined with commercial off the shelf products to allow for a compact, low-cost and low-power instrument solution which can be used on small and nanosatellites. The integrated circuits are developed, tested and provided by the industrial project partner (IDEAS). For this project already two prototype integrated circuits are available: The first a radiation detector front-end readout and the second is a general purpose data acquisition integrated circuit. A combination of both devices is planned to be used in order to create a multipurpose instrument for a wide range of applications. The university partner (UiO) has experience with the development of nanosatellite sub-systems, for example, the student-based CubeSat project CubeStar. The PhD Candidate has lead the CPT-SCOPE project, which developed a compact radiation monitoring device for a stratospheric balloon mission in 2015. This has been part of the applicant's master thesis.