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National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Goddard Space Flight Center

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Flight Data Systems & Radiation Effects Branch (Code 561)

Mission

Provide end-to-end flight data system and radiation effects engineering services, enabling both in-house and out-of-house missions at NASA.

The Flight Data Systems & Radiation Effects Branch provides expertise in the following two areas:

FLIGHT DATA SYSTEMS – Develop flight data systems with an emphasis on Command and Data Handling subsystems, for spacecraft, carrier, and instrument systems with specific areas of responsibility including:

  1. Design, development, analysis, test, and qualification of flight data system hardware. Tasks include architecting, requirements definition, circuit card design, signal integrity analysis, digital logic design, design verification through simulation and hardware testing, and integration.
  2. Flight data system engineering discipline support for out-of-house missions, proposals, anomaly/failure review boards, and design reviews.
  3. Development of advanced technologies and architectures encompassing spacecraft and instrument data buses such as microprocessors, mission unique data processing electronics, data interface devices, and memory devices.
Figure 1: Two of the inspection stations in the Flight Data Systems laboratory area equipped with microscopes are shown. The microscope in the foreground is being used to inspect an electronic circuit board assembly. Figure 2: A technician prepares a thermal chamber for an upcoming test. The thermal chamber is used to validate temperature performance of electronic hardware. The liquid nitrogen in the background is used to help remove humidity from the air, which can damage and warp electronic board assemblies.

Figure 1: Magnetospheric MultiScale (MMS) Command and Data Handling (C&DH) flight unit on the spacecraft deck.

Figure 2: AGlobal Precipitation Measurement (GPM) Command and Data Handling (C&DH) flight unit on a workbench prior to testing.

 

RADIATION EFFECTS - Assess the effects of the natural space radiation environment on electronic components, materials, and related technologies, with specific areas of responsibility including:

  1. Radiation hardness assurance engineering for projects that encompasses prediction of environments external and internal to flight systems; requirements definition; radiation testing of candidate devices and systems; analysis of radiation effects on performance and reliability; and development of mitigation approaches.
  2. Radiation engineering discipline support for out-of-house missions, proposals, anomaly/failure review boards, and design reviews.
  3. Applied research for customers such as the NASA Electronics Parts and Packaging Program, Department of Defense, and Internal Research & Development efforts that include radiation evaluation of new electronic devices; development of models and predictive tools; and investigation into radiation hardness assurance issues and development of guidelines for the Agency and the broader technical community.
A Radiation Effects and Analysis Group physicist and engineer working on one of the Radiation Effects Facility’s 2 MV Van de Graaff accelerator beamlines.  Two Radiation Effects and Analysis Group members configuring a proton radiation effects test at the University of California/Davis (UC Davis) Crocker Nuclear Laboratory. 

Figure 3: External view of a 3-dimensional model of the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) used for ray trace radiation transport analysis as part of mission extension studies.  Similar 3-D models are used to evaluate other spacecraft and instruments.

Figure 4:  Two Radiation Effects and Analysis Group members configuring a proton radiation effects test at the University of California/Davis (UC Davis) Crocker Nuclear Laboratory.  The Crocker Nuclear Laboratory is located on the UC Davis campus in Davis, CA.

 

Branch Management Team

Dave Raphael Ted Wilcox Vacant

Dave Raphael
Head

Ted Wilcox
Associate Head (Acting)		 Vacant
Associate Head

 

Contact Us
Main Office: 301-286-5659
Website: Forthcoming