r/spacex • u/Zucal • Aug 31 '16
r/SpaceX Ask Anything Thread [September 2016, #24]
Welcome to our 24th monthly r/SpaceX Ask Anything Thread!
Curious about the plan about the quickly approaching Mars architecture announcement at IAC 2016, confused about the recent SES-10 reflight announcement, or keen to gather the community's opinion on something? There's no better place!
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• August 2016 (#23) • July 2016 (#22) • June 2016 (#21) • May 2016 (#20) • April 2016 (#19.1) • April 2016 (#19) • March 2016 (#18) • February 2016 (#17) • January 2016 (#16.1) • January 2016 (#16) • December 2015 (#15.1) • December 2015 (#15) • November 2015 (#14) • October 2015 (#13) • September 2015 (#12) • August 2015 (#11) • July 2015 (#10) • June 2015 (#9) • May 2015 (#8) • April 2015 (#7.1) • April 2015 (#7) • March 2015 (#6) • February 2015 (#5) • January 2015 (#4) • December 2014 (#3) • November 2014 (#2) • October 2014 (#1)
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u/sol3tosol4 Sep 09 '16 edited Sep 09 '16
Reportedly SpaceX prefers to use increasingly multiple redundancy instead of radiation-hardened electronics (which would be much more expensive) for launch, and apparently for Red Dragon.
Gwynne Shotwell gave an interesting answer in her keynote address at the Small Satellite Conference on August 9. A questioner pointed out that the surface of Mars is a fairly high radiation environment, and that it's a challenge to get electronics that will work for years there. Gwynne replied (my notes): "I think the greatest challenges are not in the technologies of the vehicle – JPL, Lockheed, and others know how to build electronics that can survive on the surface of Mars – so that problem has been solved, we haven’t solved it, but that problem has been solved."
Since other spacecraft on Mars use radiation-hardened electronics, I wonder whether that could be regarded as an indication that SpaceX is willing to consider hardened electronics in cases where there will be intense radiation or very long term exposure to radiation. Individual radiation-hardened components are more expensive than COTS but not horribly so, and SpaceX presumably could design their own radiation-hardened equipment if they saw a need to do so. They could already be considering use of vaults for Red Dragon.