MULTIBIT UPSETS OF ONBOARD SPACECRAFT ELECTRONICS FROM A SINGLE COSMIC RADIATION PARTICLE

Abstract

The analysis of the e ect of high-energy protons of space radiation on the onboard electronics of the spacecraft is carried out. It is shown that protons can cause nuclear reactions with atomic nuclei of electronics material. The residual nuclei formed as a result of a nuclear reaction have su ciently high energy to cross the sensitive areas of several bits of electronics, and the high ionizing ability of nuclear fragments allows generating an excess charge of carriers exceeding the critical charge for the failure to occur simultaneously in several bits of the electronic device.