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This was really interesting!

What about COTS hardware on the ISS? I haven’t heard of major failures with things like their laptops.

Thanks! :) Haha! I think the ISS hull uses classified shielding to provide some kind of advanced protection. But it's expensive and based on materials science activated with electric fields. I think they also have some detection system to detect and correct single-event effects. Just info tho, I don't have an article source for this haha! :)

Even then astronnauts may be advised to not use some devices during specific solar weather, or to move to safer parts of the craft hahaha! :)

Regarding some more general info you might be interested in:

- https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/20200001591/downloads/20...

- https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/20180002659/downloads/20...

I think it’s worth mentioning here COTS hardware is also very resilient (things like ZFS without ECC excluded) to radiation these days.

Here’s a video of a GoPro riding through an electron beam: https://youtu.be/Uf4Ux4SlyT4?si=6z6626hrdXhvZ2x_

There are lots of bad things happening while it’s in the middle of the beam, but it appears to function normally after completing the pass.

That is good to mention!

That is a cool video. Tho, to be fair, it is enclosed in a Pb / Pb-glass housing to shield it!!! Haha :)

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