Challenges and Way Forward for Ensuring Environmental Compatibility of Commercial of the Shelf (COTS) Devices in a Satellite System

The terrestrial Commercial Of The Shelf (COTS) devices are being used in a satellite system in order to realize state-of-the-art technology. Further, it provides cost-effective solutions to the established methods and systems. It also meets the concomitant requirement to reduce power, mass and volume of a spacecraft system. However, prior to employment of each COTS device in a spacecraft system, it is essential to study the experiments conducted on COTS device, failure modes and design techniques reported in the literature to mitigate single event effects (SEE). Further, environmental compatibility of COTS device needs to be ensured in a spacecraft system for an application. The paper provides the challenges and way forward for ensuring environmental compatibility of COTS devices in a spacecraft system for an application.