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Electronics above
Earth
Manan Jain Neel Joshi
18BEC050 18BEC045
Nowadays, Life is impossible without satellite ser-vices as many sectors use
it for various purposes including global finance, telecommunications, trans-
portation, weather forecasting, national defense, and aviation. We can clas-
sify satellite services in three broad areas: Navigation, Communication, and
Earth observation. Navigation satellites are used for the GPS, during disasters
Communication satellite pro-vide uninterrupted communications services.
Earth observation satellites are used for transmitting environmental data.
While you are reading this article more than 1500 satellites are orbiting our
earth! Microelectronics plays an important role in space electronics. Analog
Devices has been supporting the aerospace and defense markets for decades
with high reliability. Electronic warfare, radars, communications, avionics,
unmanned systems, and missile are major applications in aerospace. Nowa-
days space market focuses on the solutions for the challenging requirements
of the space.
Challenges for Electronics in Space
Effects due to Temperature swings
In space, there are rapid and wide changes in temperature as compared to
that of Earth. It not only rises to 1200C in presence of sun but also falls to the
-1800 C. Electronic components which work efficiently at low temperature
o
are very useful for space technology as they reduce weight as well as man-
ufacturing cost by eliminating the hit sinks In design. These components are
tested before used for space applications which includes re-start operation
and thermal cycling for different frequency signals.
Radiation effect
Radiation present outside Earth environment causes variation in some pa-
rameters of electronic components or sometimes can result in complete
functional failure of the component as well. Basically, Itis the emission of
energy as electromagnetic waves or moving subatomic high-energy particles
which cause ionization.
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