Radiation protection for space

There’s a lot of radiation in space, mostly from the Sun and other cosmic rays. Earth’s magnetosphere protects us from most of this radiation. Our satellites aren’t so lucky, orbiting the Earth outside this protection, radiation can damage the satellites’ electronics. Damage can range from degradation in operational performance to complete loss of function, leading to reduced mission lifetimes or even mission failure.

There are two ways to protect satellite electronics – use radiation-hardened electronics or enclose ‘everyday’ electronics in radiation shielding material. Traditional radiation-hardened electronics are expensive and difficult to design, so we’ve developed an innovative radiation shielding material using metal matrix composites.

This kind of radiation protection opens the door to using conventional, off-the-shelf electronics on satellites, tapping into economies of scale and decades of technology advancements.

CSIRO’s novel multi-functional radiation shielding metal matrix composites provide superior radiation shielding while maintaining structural stiffness and minimising on weight due to shielding. The embedded functional properties can be controlled to provide effective shielding of particle radiation and other benefits including improved tolerance to high temperatures, controlled pathways for heat conductivity and dissipation, and increased hardness. 

These metal matrix composites consist of metals, intermetallics, ceramics, and occasionally polymers, which can be tailored to a mission’s unique needs. The resulting material can form any size and shape the base alloy can form and provides affordable radiation protection for a wide range of applications.

Ground testing has demonstrated superior radiation protection, with a 40-50 per cent improvement in proton radiation Linear Energy Transfer (LET) compared to standard aluminium alloy.

The technology will be going through its first space flight test on board Curtin University’s Binar 234 satellites, scheduled for launch from the International Space Station in September 2024.

To enquire about the use of CSIRO’s radiation shielding in your project, please contact space@csiro.au.