Infineon Technologies AG is supplying radiation-hardened HiRel energy units for NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman House Telescope. The telescope launched from Kennedy House Middle in Florida, starting its mission as NASA’s subsequent flagship area observatory.
The Roman House Telescope will journey to the second Solar-Earth Lagrange level, often known as L2, greater than 1.5 million kilometres from Earth. The placement presents secure gravitational circumstances and an unobstructed view of a large part of the sky. The telescope will function from the identical orbital area because the James Webb House Telescope.
Energy expertise constructed for excessive circumstances
Infineon’s expertise will help the telescope’s energy necessities all through its mission. The corporate has provided radiation-hardened parts for a whole lot of area missions because the Nineteen Seventies. Its area heritage contains navigation satellites, the Worldwide House Station and NASA’s Artemis programme. Infineon says its rad-hard parts have travelled greater than 20 billion kilometres from Earth throughout these missions.
“The launch marks the start of what’s going to be one of the scientifically productive area observatory missions ever undertaken, and Infineon’s HiRel expertise is a part of that from day one,” mentioned Mike Mills, Senior Vice President and Basic Supervisor HiRel at Infineon.
“Roman will function at L2 for as much as a decade with no chance of upkeep or servicing. At that distance, in that radiation atmosphere, energy expertise has to work flawlessly from day one and maintain working. House packages require applied sciences and companions they will depend on for many years, and the collection of Infineon’s HiRel units for the Roman mission displays the qualification depth and mission heritage that the area business calls for from a strategic expertise companion.”
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Past Earth’s protecting magnetic area, high-energy particles can injury digital parts and threaten mission reliability. Infineon addresses these dangers by way of semiconductor architectures designed to face up to radiation, relatively than relying solely on passive shielding.
Rad-hard units help mission operations
The Roman telescope will use Infineon’s radiation-hardened energy semiconductor parts. These units meet MIL-PRF requirements and embrace Whole Ionizing Dose and Single Occasion Results characterisation. Roman will downlink round 1.4 terabytes of uncooked science information each day to floor stations in New Mexico, Australia and Japan.
This represents the very best each day information quantity deliberate for a NASA astrophysics mission. Dependable energy supply will due to this fact stay important for the telescope’s devices and information programs.
GaN expertise expands area capabilities
Infineon’s HiRel portfolio contains radiation-hardened silicon energy MOSFETs, GaN transistors, gate drivers, solid-state relays and diodes. The corporate helps these merchandise by way of in-house fabrication, radiation testing and long-term product availability. Its JANS-qualified rad-hard 100 V GaN transistor represents a key growth within the portfolio.
GaN expertise allows decrease switching losses, increased energy density and better switching frequencies. These capabilities can cut back energy losses and magnetic part necessities whereas reducing system weight and quantity.
