Space is beautiful and serene and silent and lonely and harmful and dangerous! Being a semiconductor doesn't make things any more safe. Extreme temperature values and high radiation affect the operation of electronics and sometimes result in them being destroyed. For every possible malfunction due to radiation there is a name. In general we call them Single Event Effects or SEEs. From a bit-flip of a memory address to a SEGR or else a destructive event on a MOSFET, radiation is a cunning threat to every possible space mission.

Through our AcubeSAT project we tried to incorporate COTS (components-of-the-shelf) to our design. We avoided radiation tolerant or radhard solutions as being too expensive for us. This is why we decided to perform such tests. Bringing reassurance to the team that our electronics will withstand the expected radiation values, we reduce the risk of mission failure.