Two AST SpaceMobile satellites with large solar arrays orbiting above Earth.

AST SpaceMobile — radiation test engineering

Testing electronics until they fail

Electronics headed into orbit have to survive radiation no lab on the ground naturally has. My job was building the closed-loop test setups that exposed hardware to different radiation levels, watched exactly how it started to fail, and reported it.

What I worked on

  1. 1

    Built the closed-loop test setup

    Paired lab instrumentation with the device under test in a closed loop, reading back its digital and analog signals in real time as conditions changed around it.

  2. 2

    Tested across radiation levels

    Ran that setup at different radiation levels to see exactly how the electronics responded — and at what point and in what way they started to fail.

  3. 3

    Designed the automation

    Built automated testing systems around the setup so tests ran repeatedly and consistently, rather than depending on someone watching every signal by hand.

  4. 4

    Reported the failures

    Documented and reported what the tests found, tying each observed failure back to the specific radiation level and conditions that caused it.

A rack of automated lab test instrumentation, including signal generators and analyzers, with a device under test on the bench in front.

This is the loop — instrumentation on one side, the device under test on the other, closing the gap between a spec sheet and what actually happens under radiation.

The automation is what let that loop run test after test without someone standing over it the whole time.

An AST SpaceMobile satellite with deployed solar panels, seen from orbit above the clouds.

None of this is visible once the hardware is in orbit — which is exactly the point. The failure reports from these tests are what gave the team confidence the electronics would hold up long before launch was ever an option.