Our Users

The Exploration Company

The Exploration Company

https://www.exploration.space

 May 28, 2025   |   Andrea Coronetti

“We tested processing units and microcontrollers for the Nyx capsule. In terms of how they benefit our activities, I would say that qualifying these devices was crucial in confirming the defined avionics architecture. The beam type you need to pick depends on the radiation requirements that must be complied with and then the package complexity whether it is convenient to use high energy over low energy.

Flip-chip devices have a very small form factor, so it is easy to build very high-throughput computing systems in a small board with them and save mass and space. To test flip-chips it is ideal to have a few mm penetration because sometimes the package is 0.5 mm of copper and other times you just have chips stacked on top of each other inside the package that you can’t really test anywhere else because you can’t thin them down.

Given the number of flip-chips used in our designs, we have been actively seeking any possible opportunity to test with high-energy ions.”

The Exploration Company engineers installing their test setups in the irradiation area. (Image: The Exploration Company)

The Exploration Company engineers installing their test setups in the irradiation area. (Image: The Exploration Company)

The Exploration Company engineers installing their test setups in the irradiation area. (Image: The Exploration Company)

The Exploration Company engineers installing their test setups in the irradiation area. (Image: The Exploration Company)

Rendering of the Nyx capsule. (Image: The Exploration Company)

Rendering of the Nyx capsule. (Image: The Exploration Company)

Please use this open-access publication to reference the HEARTS project:
R. García Alía et al., "The HEARTS EU Project and its Initial Results on Fragmented High-Energy Heavy Ion Single Event Effects Testing", in IEEE TNS, doi:10.1109/TNS.2025.3530502.

The HEARTS project is funded by the European Union under Grant Agreement No. 101082402, through the Space Work Programme of the European Commission.
Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or European Commission. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.