Skip to content

ESDMD #0201: Extreme Environment Avionics

Avionics that survive, and sometimes operate, in radiation, extreme temperature, dust and vacuum, for Moon and Mars (bin 1, rating 2 of 57). Today's spacecraft subsystems operate between −180 and 130 °C, and few vacuum-tolerant systems exist. Without closure, the architecture needs more shielding, insulation and active thermal control, and loses autonomy. It is named in the Moon Base Users Guide (near-term), as a technology challenge (Tech gaps spreadsheet, ESDMD #0201; Users Guide, p. 12).

Quotations below are from row ESDMD #0201 of the tech gaps spreadsheet unless marked otherwise. ADD Rev C's Appendix D prints the same table for this gap, and it matches the row field for field (ADD Rev C, p. 208).

Description

"Exploration missions in deep space and planetary environments will expose systems to extreme environment, defined here as those with hazardous effects on crew health/safety and asset operation. The state of the art is insufficient for the expected environments over the mission durations. There is a need for avionics systems that are tolerant to one or more of the following list: large aggregate radiation doses, extreme temperatures, dust, and vacuum. Heat rejection in vacuum is a particular challenge. At a minimum, the system should survive the extreme environment and in some cases, the system may need to operate in the extreme environment."

Impacts and benefits: "Without gap closure, there would be a need for increased shielding/insulation across multiple systems/subsystems, need for active thermal control, increased failures and required maintenance, inability to reliably leverage high-performance processing applications, and capability reductions for autonomy."

Current state of the art

"Existing spacecraft subsystems operate between -180 and 130 deg C. TBR radiation tolerance with degraded functionality. A limited number of vacuum-tolerant systems exist."

Performance target

  • Moon/Mars: "Enable avionics' tolerance of and survival in extreme environments (temperature, radiation, dust, vacuum, etc.)."
  • Moon: "In addition, increased dust tolerance compared to the Martian performance target."
  • Mars: "In addition, increased reliability and decreased maintenance needs compared to the lunar performance target."

Child gaps

  • 0201-01: Thermal management for electronics in extreme environments and temperatures
  • 0201-02: Cold- and dust-tolerant electronics interfaces and connectors
  • 0201-03*: Radiation-tolerant exploration computing systems
  • 0202-02*: Radiation-hardened data storage to enable autonomous operations

The asterisk marks "a child gap with multiple parents" (ADD Rev C, p. 199). Both starred child gaps also appear under #0202.

Traceability

  • Use cases and functions: UC-A-101 L -- FN-A-202 L; UC-A-201 L -- FN-A-202 L; UC-C-107 M -- All FN; UC-D-201 M -- All FN; UC-A-403 M -- FN-G-401 M; UC-A-403 M -- FN-G-407 M; UC-A-404 M -- FN-G-407 M
  • Definition tasks: none listed

Segments and sub-architectures

Priority

Priority bin 1, overall prioritization rating 2 of 57. The rating is "the gap's location in the prioritized list of gaps", so 1 is the highest priority, and bins group gaps of similar priority, bin 1 highest. Criticality, urgency, breadth and depth set the order; cost is not considered (ADD Rev C, pp. 78, 199; method on the gaps index).

Moon Base relevance

The guide lists #0101, #0201, #0301, #0801 and #0804 together against the three technology bullets of the long-duration challenge, without assigning gaps to bullets. The bullet quoted below is the one closest to this gap's subject.

The Users Guide names #0201 under the headline challenge "Operating on the lunar surface for long durations", whose technology challenge includes: "Develop extreme temperature-tolerant mechanisms and electronics for operating through periods of lunar shadow without dedicated heating systems" (Users Guide, p. 12). The guide ties its challenges to "near-term Moon Base development efforts": missions in phase one "offer opportunities to collect data and mature technologies to enable essential phase two and phase three capabilities" (p. 11). See Technology and knowledge challenges.

Sources

Tech gaps spreadsheet, ESDMD #0201 · ADD Rev C, pp. 78, 199, 208 · Users Guide, p. 12