Connecting Australia’s Radiation Effects Testing Capabilities to the World and wrapping up the 2026 IEEE NSREC - Nuclear and Space Radiation Effects Conference in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

This year, alongside traditional radiation effects research, there was strong attention on commercial off the shelf components, system on chip devices, memories, and AI accelerators.

For InSpace's Strategic Project Manager Anupam Kumar Pilli, the short course on radiation hardness assurance provided several important lessons:

• Testing must begin with the mission environment, architecture and acceptable level of risk, rather than a generic qualification checklist.

• Higher beam energy is sometimes essential for deeply buried sensitive volumes and advanced packaged devices, but higher energy is not automatically a better test. The beam, particle and energy should be selected for the device, failure mechanism and mission being assessed. This was particularly encouraging in the Australian context as we do not yet have higher energy beam sources on par with US or EU.

• Component testing remains fundamental, but it does not always predict system behaviour. Board and system level testing can reveal dependent failures, recovery problems and interactions between hardware, software and mitigation strategies.

These points are particularly relevant to Australia. We need an radiation assurance approach that is technically rigorous, mission specific and accessible to emerging space companies, researchers and mission teams. Replicating the most expensive qualification pathway for every mission is neither realistic nor always necessary.

For ANU Institute for Space | InSpace, this reinforces the importance of connecting missions, researchers, industry and infrastructure. The Heavy Ion Accelerators Facility’s Space Irradiation Beamline (HIAF-SIBL) can provide an accessible entry point for component, board and system testing, early design feedback and commercial-component screening, while connecting projects with complementary national and international facilities when specialised or higher-energy testing is required.

While I had the privilege of representing ANU HIAF - SIBL, it was also encouraging to see partners from the National Space Qualification Network (NSQN), Centre for Medical Radiation Physics & ANSTO, represented at the conference.

Thank you to everyone who generously shared their experience, research and perspectives throughout the week.