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This might be a stupid newbie question, but I really wonder reading that folks use cheap "commodity" hardware for satellites like mentioned here, like boards MSP430F5529 or STM32F407 but for sure there are many others as well.

Looking on the vendor sites [2,3] I cannot find anything featuring robustness of specifically these two boards with regard to radiation, high energy particles, high temperature, vibration, pressure.. So do these factor impose far less risks (there would be figures?..) than guys like Boeing, Lockheed Martin & Co. would probably advocate for their less cheap but well-tested "space hardware", or are many early stage small-scale experimentations just not thought to be sustainable at early stages because the business model/strategy take this into account anyway?.. Or I just miss the point?

Looking forward to learn the objective truth in this context.

[1] Does anybody work on a "spacecraft linux"?

[2] http://www.ti.com/product/MSP430F5529/datasheet

[3] http://www.st.com/en/microcontrollers/stm32f407-417.html?querycriteria=productId=LN11

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  • $\begingroup$ This is an interesting question, but which people? which satellites? Military? Students? Defense/Emergency/Early Warning? Chip Sat? I ask because these kinds of things are key to component selection. Also there's simply not a big radiation concern for a 3 month stint at a few hundred km decaying orbit versus something passing through the Van Allen radiation belts every few weeks. See if you can narrow down your question relative to these aspects. $\endgroup$
    – uhoh
    Commented Jun 10, 2017 at 5:56
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    $\begingroup$ well I can rather imagine companies building "satellite platforms" and other companies building "solutions" on them for customers from domains you have named, here I see risks. $\endgroup$
    – J. Doe
    Commented Jun 10, 2017 at 6:33
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    $\begingroup$ Oh OK, you can consider editing your original question and specifying commercial satellites and payloads. This will help narrow down the subject somewhat. It's up to you but that might help someone writing a detailed answer. $\endgroup$
    – uhoh
    Commented Jun 10, 2017 at 6:41
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    $\begingroup$ Industrial components are cheaper because they are not designed and tested for a space environment. Testing them for radiation, high energy particles, high temperature, vibration and pressure was not done to keep the price low. The specification contains only data validated by tests. There is no data available to rate the risk using them in space. $\endgroup$
    – Uwe
    Commented Jun 10, 2017 at 8:54
  • $\begingroup$ @Uwe - that looks like an answer! $\endgroup$
    – J. Doe
    Commented Jun 10, 2017 at 11:48

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(Copied from comments, just because it's been some years:)

Industrial components are cheaper because they are not designed and tested for a space environment. Testing them for tolerance to radiation, high energy particles, high temperature, vibration and pressure would be expensive. The specification contains only data validated by tests. There is no data available to rate the risk of using them in space.

Space components physically identical to non-space ones are tested to identify batches in a production run that have better "lot acceptance test" results. That is expensive.

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