High-Temperature, Radiation-Hard and High-Efficiency DC-DC Converters for Space

The program will exit with functional and radiation testing of a 2.3kW example of a new type of radhard high power density DC-DC power converter card that can substantially reduce thermal management needs and small signal parts count hence bulk/weight/complexity costs for satellites. It will be shown that leveraging higher performance wide bandgap power components, newly released radhard ASICs, and a unique electrical/thermal bifurcated design provide far higher radiation and thermal withstand than what is presently available to US military space operations and will be suitable for operation in harsh thermal and radiation environments including satellites in GEO and MEO orbit. The unique new power architecture allows for continuous operation to 200°C or above and TID to 330kRad (with an extended target of 500kRad). The large benefit to the US military will be a new class of power supply solutions enabling far higher power density converters needing substantially reduced thermal or radiation solutions that both provide significant SwaP and risk reductions. The design provides agile power by simply selecting the desired number of baseline slot-in very rad hard/high temperature/power density 2kW power cards.