VOXL1 and 2 Environmental Testing Documents
-
Good afternoon! My name is Janelle Tran and I am an electrical engineering student at Cal Poly Pomona. I am undergoing a research project funded by NASA's USTP program to create a strong and reliable smallsat that can merge into any other larger system and provide the capability to reliably deploy AI models in space.
We are interested in using your VOXL1 or VOXL2 as our main flight computer, which will be connected to a Jetson AGX Orin. I was recently interning for a NASA JPL internship for the CADRE lunar rover project, which also used the VOXL1 as its main flight computer and I was inspired to use your product in my research project as well!
The only issue is that I was unable to find any environmental testing documents on your website for both the VOXLs. The key parameter that I was looking for is the operating temperature range of the VOXL1 and 2. Do you have any supporting documents that have this information? Thank you for the help!
-
Hi @Janelletran
That is an exciting effort, and yes we are proud of our work with JPL as well for the CADRE program.
As you may very well guess, JPL is in a unique position to stress test all components and sub-systems above and beyond published specs with regularity. It is one of the reasons why JPL is so successful.
In the case of CADRE, as you may have guessed, we notified the JPL teams that VOXL is rated for commercial use of 0C to 55C ambient due to component ratings of 85C operating max.
However, JPL being JPL, they have mostly pushed past those limits in many areas, and they have many reports showing success well outside those ranges. Unfortunately, we are not allowed to share that data.All that said, we only have data on 0-55C for VOXL. We have made efforts to ensure VOXL 2 is a wider range of 0-70C. However, as you may guess, those limits are insufficient for JPL and the only way to validate the system for your application is to test test test. Your colleagues at JPL may already have all the data you need for VOXL or VOXL 2 to continue with your research.
For current integration and ease of use, along with the horsepower you may need, we'd encourage VOXL 2 for your use case. The expandability is much broader than VOXL, and will be supported for years to come . VOXL is already listed as NRND on our website for the lifecycle status.
I hope this was helpful, and please keep using the forum for any questions that may come up.
-
@Vinny Thank you so much for the information!
-
@Vinny Knowing that the VOXL2 only has data to support 0-70C, would you still comfortably suggest using the VOXL2 in the LEO orbit where the temperature is at least -40 to 60C? I am really advocating to use the VOXL2 within my team, but I'm not sure if it is still feasible.
-
Hi @Janelletran
Yes, absolutely!
It comes down to providing an enclosure that can allow your core electronics to function in extreme environments, including radiation effects. It's a very common problem JPL is an expert at solving.
They have already done that with Snapdragon Flight (Ingenuity Helicopter on Mars) and VOXL for CADRE moon mission (plus others I am not allowed to say
) -
@Vinny,
Out of curiosity (no pun intended), is there a design justification why the VOXL2 hasn't been tested below 0C? Is there a specific component that is not rated below 0C that limits the entire system to the 0-70C range? If so, it would be possible to just switch out that specific component to a more temperature resilient component possibly. -
Hi @Janelletran
It's a much deeper question.All of the parts on our VOXL 2 BOM are rated for -25C or colder, and 85C or hotter.
0-70C is a standard "commercial" range and we largely sell commercial products. There are some small designs we have that are indeed limited to part specs of 0-70C (VOXL 2 is not one of them
).
We do testing and screening as needed on a case-by-case basis outside of those ranges.
For example, we qualified our power module M0041 over the full industrial range (-40 to 85C) since that is a critical part of every system, we wanted to ensure it was more stressed and proven over a larger range to ensure it was never the "weak link" in such commercial systems.VOXL 2 I can assure you was tested well outside 0-70C, specifically for cold/heat thermal shocks, and passed with flying colors. I just cannot share that data or the specifics since it was done for a specific customer.
I trust your tests will prove the same. -
@Vinny
That's really helpful information, thank you!
