Boosting Europe’s Space Radiation Testing Capabilities

The global space economy is today worth over $500 billion as state and private actors unlock more potential every year, with applications ranging from satellite communication, navigation, weather forecasting, environmental monitoring, as well as space-based research and exploration. 
But in order to send equipment – including electronics – to space, it all must be tested. 

In November 2024, 10 companies and institutions spent over 150 hours at CERN testing electronic components and modules for a variety of uses in space, blasting them with very high-energy lead beams from the Proton Synchrotron (PS) at the recently developed HEARTS@CERN facility.

These experiments represented a pilot run for the EU-funded  High-Energy Accelerators for Radiation Testing and Shielding (HEARTS) project, which aims to establish two new radiation testing facilities for space applications, one at CERN and the other at the GSI Helmholtz Centre for Heavy Ion Research in Germany.