Broadening of RHA-Testing Quality in Europe (Keynote)
Robert Ecoffet
RADECS Association
Abstract
The past decade has witnessed a large broadening of offer in terms of radiation test facilities. On top of “historical” test facilities, other facilities not necessarily interested in radiation tests in the first place now see this activity as a viable one, and new facilities have been set up. The offer covers now almost any type of particles and energies necessary to assess space and ground/atmospheric effects. Types of radiation used in the past for space qualification was Cobalt-60 (alternative X-rays), high energy protons (few 10-100 MeV) and medium energy heavy ions (few 1-10 MeV/nucleon). The emergence of direct ionization proton SEEs, electron SEEs (few 100 keV – few 10 MeVs), and radiation effects on materials now advocate also the use of low energy proton beams, electron beams of various energies, photons in various wavelength, in single or combined irradiation.
In the same period, the space sector has witnessed the apparition and development of new players and businesses (e.g. “new space”, nanosatellites). Depending on the radiation hardness policies that will be adopted, this new context may possibly lead to a larger volume of testing activity, and will surely demand cheaper tests.
In the past, few customers (agencies, prime contractors) used few historical facilities. In the future, a possibly large number of customers will meet a large offer in terms of test facilities. The new players will not have necessarily, or will not be willing to have, the expertise on how to choose and define test conditions. This gives a business way to specialized radiation engineering service companies able to make the interface.
There is to date no clear European normative documents defining minimum quality requirements, as such, for test facilities. We believe that a more developed normative and labelling system would be of great help in better structuring this new economy.