Program > Keynote Speeches

Keynotes

Radiation effects in avionics equipment

Maria Mazurek, Airbus, France

Contrary to popular perception, cosmic radiation can have strong effects on avionics equipment. The upper Earth’s atmosphere is consistently struck by cosmic rays lead to secondary particles emission. These secondary cosmic rays can disturb the embedded electronics that is more and more present in our aircrafts. This presentation will provide insights into the origin of these particles and their impact in avionics applications. Avionics requirements and concerns will be explained then the Airbus Radiation Policy will be detailed. Finally, some in-field radiation examples will be illustrated.

Maria Mazurek received her Master’s and Engineer degrees in microelectronics from Telecom Bretagne Brest (France) and from Gdansk University of Technology (Poland) in 2009. From 2009 to 2013, she was with HIREX Engineering, France, developing various radiation-effects testing programs, and performing radiation tests with particle accelerators for space and avionics applications. Maria Mazurek is now Radiation Effects Specialist in Avionics and Simulation Products Domain at Airbus, in France, where she has been working since 2013. Maria is in charge of selecting and qualifying electronic devices for future avionics applications. She is also responsible for providing radiation expertise for production and after-market products. Further, she manages Airbus research projects related to radiation fields. Since 2013, she is a member of IEC technical committee 107, and she leads AIRBUS activities in the IEC 62396, International Standardization Body.

Remote failure analysis : a practical example with Microscope Mission

Jean-Renaud MEYER, CNES, France

Microscope (MICROSatellite à traînée Compensée pour l'Observation du Principe d'Equivalence) is a Myriade CNES microsat launched in 2016. Objective was to verify the Mass equivalence beyond 10^-13

The T-SAGE instrument was developed through a ONERA-CNRS-CNES cooperation to measure 2 titanium and platinum/rhodium masses in quasi-perfect free fall conditions, with differential electrostatic accelerometers. Experiment has been a success verifying the mass equivalence. A first scientific paper at around 2.10^-14 (10 time better than the previous measurement) has been published with the first sessions of the science mission. A new publication using the full mission data is planned before the end of this year 2019 and will improve significantly the measurement accuracy. 2 months after launch, the electrostatic monitoring system suffered some trouble that interrupted briefly the experiment. Investigation team has been created with several experts in electronics/thermal/parts domains working with project team in order to find out the root cause and save the experiment. Thanks to cross correlation of facts in several disciplines, and experimenting an engineering model of electronic boards in laboratory tested in flight conditions and submitted to our scenario, a root cause has been formally identified and reproduced. There was no workaround solution because the affected electronic board was not redounded, but the Team established with enough confidence that the failure had a relatively limited impact that would not affect the experiment. The combination of different skills from CNES experts contributed to clearly identify the anomaly and define the impact perimeter and consequences, bringing enough confidence for the future and success of Microscope mission that terminated in 2018 after 2 years of measurements.

Jean-Renaud MEYER is a spacecraft avionics engineer from the French Ecole Supérieure d’Electricité (ESE/Supélec), graduated in 1987. He came to the French Space Agency CNES in 1988 and started working as a radiofrequency engineer and moved later as avionics architect. He took part to several programs among which the SPOT  French Earth Observation program and the Mars Sample Return mission. In 2003 he moved to the PLEIADES French Earth Observation program as main avionics architect, and provides support for ongoing CNES programs. He regularly has been providing expertise support in the frame of anomalies investigations for several spacecrafts in flight as in development phases.