The resulting paper, from an ESA and Airbus team, was awarded Best Data Workshop paper at the recent European radiation effects conference, RADECS 2024. Its findings also hold relevance for other missions employing the same mass memory hardware, including Copernicus Sentinel-6, also in Earth orbit, and BepiColombo, headed to Mercury through deep space.

The space beyond Earth is filled with radiation: high-energy particles originating from the Sun, belts of protons, electrons and ions trapped within Earth’s magnetic field and an exotic menagerie of ‘cosmic rays’ – also particles, despite their name – which are shot inwards from far beyond the Solar System.