Study of the radiation environment of the Serpens-II satellite mission and the necessary protection of electronic components

The space environment is very inhospitable; several factors must be considered when designing a satellite so that it can be operated with the desired lifetime and reliability levels. Satellites consist of different subsystems, mostly constituted by electronic components. The incidence of space radiation over such components can cause them to fail or degrade their performance over time. In this paper, we conduct studies to identify the need for shielding to reduce radiation incidence upon CubeSat components. The SPENVIS interface was used for particle flow simulations in the space environment to analyze the radiation deposited in the devices. The more detailed the geometry of the satellite model, the closer to reality will the estimated dose be. We concluded that computational simulations can be a useful tool for dimensioning the radiation tolerance of components in the design phase of a satellite.