Miniaturization of Comprehensive Energetic Charged Particle Detectors for Anomaly Attribution

An Energetic Charged Particle (ECP) sensor with reduced SWaP would enhance the nation’s space-based platform for space weather observing systems by enabling the use of smaller spacecraft. Moreover, a modular architecture that enables customization of the instrument target spectra to the mission profile would allow further optimizations in SWaP while still enabling the acquisition of valuable data for the nation’s space weather and space situational awareness data assimilation and modeling platform. ECP’s sensor SWaP will be reduced by 1) using a novel stack of detectors and new materials to reduce sensor’s required readout channels which impacts its overall SWaP and 2) using high density integration techniques to assemble multiple discrete component (including ASIC tiles) into a single compact module capable of withstanding radiation harsh environments characteristic of 15-year missions. This mixed signal module’s function will be to acquire and process the sensor’s signals as it will comprise Analog-to-Digital converters and a microprocessor. Moreover, this module has strong commercialization potential on itself that IDEAS-TEK plans to exploit as part of a comprehensive commercialization effort. The proposed effort leverages innovative techniques and ASICs developed by the team members on different and independent efforts, translating into significant savings for this effort.