Technical
Radiation Hardening
The design and manufacturing techniques that make spacecraft electronics resilient to the damaging effects of the space radiation environment.
Radiation hardening protects electronics against cumulative ionising dose and against transient events caused by energetic particles in the space environment, including the Van Allen belts and solar events.
Techniques span specialised components, shielding, redundancy, and error-correcting logic. Hardening improves reliability and lifetime, particularly for missions traversing high-radiation regions, but adds cost and can lag commercial electronics in performance.