Saving Express-AM4 and Using it to Serve Antarctic Research
Repurposing Express-AM4: Mission Possible: Recycling Space Junk into Antarctic Science Treasure
“There have been reports that the Express-AM4 spacecraft has received too high of a radiation dose, beyond that expected for its entire 15 year mission, thus rendering the use of the satellite to risky for our purpose. This analysis is likely based upon older computer models of the radiation environment in its current orbit. The current solar cycle (solar cycle 24) has so far only been a fraction of past solar cycles, upon which most current computer radiation models are based.”
Good luck with this project. A very unusual idea.
There have been proposals to use ram chips as radiation detectors. The higher the radiation the more bits that are corrupted. Are there are large areas whose value is know that have not been written to since launch? Message buffering areas for instance. The error correction would have to be monitored during the sweep.