NASA demonstrates electronics for longer Venus surface missions February 10, 2017 Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Integrated circuit before (above) and after (below) testing in Venus atmospheric conditions. Credit: NASA A team of scientists at NASA's Glenn Research Center in Cleveland recently completed a technology demonstration that could enable new scientific missions to the surface of Venus. The team demonstrated the first prolonged operation of electronics in the harsh conditions found on Venus. "With further technology development, such electronics could drastically improve Venus lander designs and mission concepts, enabling the first long-duration missions to the surface of Venus," said Phil Neudeck, lead electronics engineer for this work. Current Venus landers can only operate on the planet's surface for a few hours due to the extreme atmospheric conditions. Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2017-02-nasa-electronics-longer-venus-surface.html#jCp
http://aip.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/1.4973429 Prolonged silicon carbide integrated circuit operation in Venus surface atmospheric conditions ABSTRACT The prolonged operation of semiconductor integrated circuits (ICs) needed for long-duration exploration of the surface of Venus has proven insurmountably challenging to date due to the ∼ 460 °C, ∼ 9.4 MPa caustic environment. Past and planned Venus landers have been limited to a few hours of surface operation, even when IC electronics needed for basic lander operation are protected with heavily cumbersome pressure vessels and cooling measures. Here we demonstrate vastly longer (weeks) electrical operation of two silicon carbide (4H-SiC) junction field effect transistor (JFET) ring oscillator ICs tested with chips directly exposed (no cooling and no protective chip packaging) to a high-fidelity physical and chemical reproduction of Venus’ surface atmosphere. This represents more than 100-fold extension of demonstrated Venus environment electronics durability. With further technology maturation, such SiC IC electronics could drastically improve Venus lander designs and mission concepts, fundamentally enabling long-duration enhanced missions to the surface of Venus.
