Representativeness of 60Co testing for EEE components to be flown in JUICE

Abstract

The major contribution to the Total Ionizing Dose (TID) damage to EEE components to be flown in the ESA JUICE mission to the Jovian system comes from the electron radiation belts of Jupiter and of its moons. However, standard testing of TID degradation of EEE components is performed with 60Co gammas. In this work the representativity of 60Co testing for the Jovian electron environment was tested by comparing TID degradation of selected EEE components when irradiated with 60Co gammas and with electron beams with energy above 10 MeV. In order to perform this verification, typical components used in space systems were irradiated at different facilities, under different conditions with High Dose Rate (HDR) and Low Dose Rate (LDR) 60Co gammas and with 12 MeV and 20 MeV electrons beams up to 100 krad (water). Key parameters of each component were measured before, during (every 20 krad) and after irradiation. The results obtained show no significant sensitivity to radiation type in all components tested. Furthermore, results achieved (the annealing measurement phase is still ongoing) confirm that 60Co testing is representative of the expected response to TID of the five tested component types to be flown in JUICE.