nano-spacecraft tagged posts

A nano-spacecraft such as ChipSat, which consists of solar cells and functional blocks in a printed circuit board, would face a high risk of damage from radiation and aging issues on a flight into deep space. Especially, most of functional blocks such as microcontroller, memories, sensors, and communication system are semiconductor-based chips. Credit: D.-I. Moon et al.

Self healing chips—healing after radiation damage—could have an impact on interstellar spacecraft, according to reports. Scientists at NASA and KAIST) have been pioneering development of “tiny spacecraft made from a single silicon chip that could slash interstellar exploration times.” Inverse described this breakthrough as “a transistor for silicon chips that can heal itself after radiation damage...