News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:The CPUs of Spacecraft Computers in Space by throwaway189262 on Saturday December 19, 2020 @01:46AM (#25475629)
The private sector has decided to put regular ground chips in spacecraft and just deal with errors using triple redundancy. Low earth orbit where most satellites hang out doesn't have much radiation anyways.

The cost savings from using regular chips is so high that I bet SpaceX will continue to use them even in deep space. Just surround them with sheilding. When a $400 desktop cpu is 500X faster than a $40,000 space rated one a couple pounds of shielding is well worth it

Re:The CPUs of Spacecraft Computers in Space by chmod775 on Saturday December 19, 2020 @02:26AM (#25475796)
The kind of radiation you want to protect against is not "easily" shielded.

The effectiveness of shielding is proportional to its mass and thickness, and both are at a premium for spacecraft.