Computers in Spaceflight: The NASA Experience

[Pigeon]

History of computer design at NASA starting with the Gemini Digital Computer, Apollo, Skylab, Shuttle and other space craft.

Link

[Pigeon]

One possibility that concerns computer designers is the effect of highly charged particle impacts on memory cells. If a particle has sufficient energy to change the information stored in a bit, it can affect the software in a potentially disastrous way.

Such a spurious change is called a single event upset (SEU).

Sufficient numbers of particles can cause so many bits to change states that the software fails.

[Royal]

Can this be used for nuclear radiation leak/detection. Say if a communication/tracking device with a memory array was attached to cargo?

[Pigeon]

There are better, more reliable, monitors. In this case there would not a way to know what particle caused it.