Development of a Nanosat Radiation Environment Monitor (NanoREM) based on COTS components

The space radiation environment is harmful to both spacecraft and astronauts. In order to understand the risks posed, spacecraft are equipped with radiation environment and effects monitoring instruments. Cubesats are rapidly extending their capabilities, enabling more ambitious scientific, commercial and military satellite missions. These small spacecraft are growing in number and size, staying operational for longer and even moving beyond LEO into harsh radiation environments. The Cubesat sector embraces rapid development cycles and the use of (upscreened) Commercial-Off-The-Shelf technology - they are now tackling improving reliability and Radiation Hardness Assurance (RHA). A small, low cost radiation environment monitor is key to radiation risk assessment and mitigation, providing the data needed to analyze and validate the performance of onboard technologies. The NanoREM instrument is developed at the Delft University of Technology, in collaboration with an industry leading CubeSat manufacturer. NanoREM is a low cost, Cubesat compatible semiconductor diode telescope for charged particle spectrometry and coarse calorimetry. The instrument consists of a stack of silicon sensors (PIN diodes) for ?LET measurement, coupled with a signal processing board for readout. The current prototype has a mass of 700g, occupies a 0.8U volume and implements a telescope casing made out of a metal/polymer sandwich for improved radiation isolation of the detector stack.