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DIRECTED
ENERGY
PROFESSIONAL
SOCIETY
Abstract: 25-Systems-088
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UNCLASSIFIED, PUBLIC RELEASE
Effects of High Energy Hydrogen Atom Interactions with Electronic Devices
High energy particles interacting with a space vehicle’s mission critical components and electronic devices can cause havoc in onboard operations. Single Event Upsets (SEUs) caused by direct ionization by incident charged particles or secondary nuclear reactions internal to electronic devices may deposit enough charge over small volumes to exceed the circuit’s built-in thresholds for bit states. Although most space-grade electronic systems are relatively tolerant to isolated or low-density SEUs, a critical threshold exists where SEUs accumulate within a short period of time, overwhelming error correction logic and causing a cascade of disruptions across space vehicle systems. Effects such as memory errors, processor malfunctions, and subsystem failures can occur, leading to disruptions to vital communication, navigation, and power systems in critical control circuitry. In this paper, we present the physics and preliminary device testing analysis to induce SEUs in critical space flight hardware based on high TRL components such as medical proton therapy linear accelerators (LINACs). These components can be constructed to produce a Neutral Particle Beam (NPB) orbital platform used to induce disruptions to adversaries’ space vehicles and ICBMs. Our results indicate that with LINAC specifications of low input power of 350kW with a maximum beam energy of 200MeV, and average beam current of 5µA-100 µA can induce SEUs in Xilinx Kintex Field-Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) with 30 seconds of dwell time. Device testing on other critical flight components and integrating with a high-fidelity 6dof simulations can demonstrate the lethality of the cascade of SEUs in space vehicles such as ICBMs and other space vehicles.
UNCLASSIFIED, PUBLIC RELEASE
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