{"id":13956,"date":"2017-12-20T07:34:03","date_gmt":"2017-12-20T07:34:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/?p=13956"},"modified":"2020-05-27T06:20:22","modified_gmt":"2020-05-27T06:20:22","slug":"cern-hosts-esa-high-energy-radiation-experiments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/cern-hosts-esa-high-energy-radiation-experiments\/","title":{"rendered":"CERN hosts ESA for high-energy radiation experiments"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
360 degree view of SPS<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

An ESA-led group subjected components and space equipment to the most intense beam of ultra-high energy heavy ions available \u2013 short of travelling into space \u2013 during a week-long visit to CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research.<\/span><\/p>\n

Test items were placed in a path of an experimental beamline fed by the Super Proton Synchrotron (SPS) particle accelerator. Located in a circular tunnel nearly 7 km in circumference, the SPS is CERN\u2019s second largest accelerator after the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), which the SPS feeds into in turn.<\/span><\/p>\n

ESA was invited to make use of the Geneva-based centre\u2019s beamline as part of an ESA\u2013CERN cooperation agreement signed by their respective Director Generals.<\/span><\/p>\n

The team donned hard hats and ventured into a ground floor \u2018cave\u2019 surrounded by protective concrete blocks to place items in the beam path, retreating upstairs before the beam was fired.<\/span><\/p>\n

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ESA team at beamline<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cIt was a very exciting experience \u2013 we were exploring,\u201d said V\u00e9ronique Ferlet-Cavrois, heading ESA\u2019s Power Systems, EMC and Space Environments division. \u201cThis ion beam is equivalent to the ultra-high energy part of the galactic cosmic ray spectrum \u2013 above 10 GeV\/nucleon \u2013 whose effects have never been experimentally measured on the ground before.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Space is a vacuum, but it is far from empty. It is awash in charged particles, including protons from the Sun as well as cosmic rays from the wider Universe, highly charged nuclei originating from violent cosmic regions such as exploding stars or black holes, then accelerated by magnetic fields during their galactic journeys.<\/span><\/p>\n

The challenge for ESA electronics and space environment specialists is to ensure that components needed for space missions can go on performing in these high-radiation conditions.<\/span><\/p>\n

Microprocessors, for instance, are growing ever more powerful as the number of transistors placed on a single chip doubles every two years or less \u2013 the famous \u2018Moore\u2019s Law\u2019 \u2013 but this leaves them ever more vulnerable to \u2018single event events\u2019 as the transit of charged particles flip memory bits, or even trigger destructive short circuit \u2018latch-ups\u2019.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cCERN has to deal with comparable issues,\u201d adds V\u00e9ronique. \u201cThe particle collisions they trigger to study the nature of matter can emit radiation which may affect the detectors, electromagnets and other electronics around their accelerators.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cFor instance, in 2007 CERN created their R2E task force \u2013 Radiation to Electronics \u2013 evaluating the risk of failures due to radiation in the control electronics of the LHC. So we have a long history of collaboration, long before our formal cooperation agreement was signed in 2014.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

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Space radiation<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

ESA maintains a network of external facilities equipped with particle accelerators, such as the Louvain Cyclotron Resource Centre in Belgium, the Accelerator Laboratory at the University of Jyv\u00e4skyl\u00e4, Finland, and Paul Scherrer Institute in Switzerland, but these offer access only to the lower energy segments of the cosmic ray spectrum.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOur external facilities are suitable and used largely for testing individual components, but we typically have to remove them from their packaging so that heavy ions can reach them,\u201d comments V\u00e9ronique. \u201cTesting at CERN, the beam was energetic enough to easily penetrate packaging, a fact which also allowed us to test entire items of equipment.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Items under test included a complete Raspberry Pi computer, a new type of power component \u2013 a schottky diode made in silicon carbide \u2013 and novel \u2018field effect transistors\u2019 offering improved control of electron flows, as well as multiprocessor system-on-chip (MPSoC) \u2018field programmable gate arrays\u2019 (FPGAs) \u2013 standardised programmable chips that can be customised to perform a wide variety of different tasks.<\/span><\/p>\n

Also under test was a\u00a0Standard Radiation Environment Monitor<\/a>\u00a0(SREM), a highly-sensitive radiation detector already flown on multiple ESA missions. The results should enhance calibration of the SREMs in space.<\/span><\/p>\n

The ESA team was accompanied to CERN during the last week of November by representatives of a number of companies and institutions partnering with the Agency on various projects: Germany\u2019s Fraunhofer Institute for Technological Trend Analysis, France\u2019s iRoC Technologies, Poltecnico di Torino, the National Technical University of Athens and French space agency CNES.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe will now study our results and use them to fine-tune our simulations,\u201d concludes V\u00e9ronique. \u201cWe will have a second CERN test campaign this time next year, while also planning to employ the similarly high-energy GSI-FAIR facility in Darmstadt, Germany.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An ESA-led group subjected components and space equipment to the most intense beam of ultra-high energy heavy ions available \u2013 short of travelling into space \u2013 during a week-long visit to CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research. Test items were placed in a path of an experimental beamline fed by the Super Proton Synchrotron […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":13959,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13956","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-space-news"],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/Space_radiation_affects_satellites_medium.jpg",305,187,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/Space_radiation_affects_satellites_medium-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/Space_radiation_affects_satellites_medium-300x184.jpg",300,184,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/Space_radiation_affects_satellites_medium.jpg",305,187,false],"large":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/Space_radiation_affects_satellites_medium.jpg",305,187,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/Space_radiation_affects_satellites_medium.jpg",305,187,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/Space_radiation_affects_satellites_medium.jpg",305,187,false],"ultp_layout_landscape_large":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/Space_radiation_affects_satellites_medium.jpg",305,187,false],"ultp_layout_landscape":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/Space_radiation_affects_satellites_medium.jpg",305,187,false],"ultp_layout_portrait":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/Space_radiation_affects_satellites_medium.jpg",305,187,false],"ultp_layout_square":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/Space_radiation_affects_satellites_medium.jpg",305,187,false],"newspaper-x-single-post":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/Space_radiation_affects_satellites_medium.jpg",305,187,false],"newspaper-x-recent-post-big":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/Space_radiation_affects_satellites_medium.jpg",305,187,false],"newspaper-x-recent-post-list-image":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/Space_radiation_affects_satellites_medium.jpg",95,58,false],"web-stories-poster-portrait":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/Space_radiation_affects_satellites_medium.jpg",305,187,false],"web-stories-publisher-logo":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/Space_radiation_affects_satellites_medium.jpg",96,59,false],"web-stories-thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/Space_radiation_affects_satellites_medium.jpg",150,92,false]},"author_info":{"info":["Amrita Tuladhar"]},"category_info":"Space\/ AstroPhysics<\/a>","tag_info":"Space\/ AstroPhysics","comment_count":"0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13956","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13956"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13956\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13959"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13956"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13956"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13956"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}