Jan Budroweit

In early 2024, the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) announced that global air traffic had essentially fully recovered from the COVID-19 pandemic on most routes and projected a significant increase in air traffic for 2024 and the years to come [1] . Naturally, increased air traffic has to be met with the same amount of appropriate air traffic surveillance, in order to maintain safety but also to increase the efficiency of the used airspace and possibly reduce separation distances to allow more aircraft to be safely routed through the same volume.

Provides society information that may include news, reviews or technical notes that should be of interest to practitioners and researchers.

Provides society information that may include news, reviews or technical notes that should be of interest to practitioners and researchers.

The possibility of using a calibrated SRAM memory for the quantification of neutron fluence in a radiotherapy facility for cancer treatment utilizing a high-energy 15 MV photon beam (Bremsstrahlung) from an electron linear accelerator has been exploited in this work. This has been performed by varying the field size of the photon beam and the positioning of the SRAM memory at three different positions in relation to the isocenter of the beam. The measurements demonstrated that neutrons originating from interactions between the high-energy photons and accelerator parts with high-Z materials are able to induce SEUs in the SRAM memory, where the measured SEUs depend on the measurement location. Monte Carlo simulations have been performed to retrieve the neutron fluence under each investigated measurement condition. Using the simulated neutron fluence differential in energy and the interactions cross sections determined previously, the expected SEUs were computed. Comparison between measured and simulated SEUs normalized to the linac output shows acceptable agreement within the experimental uncertainties. As exposure to secondary neutrons poses a risk to all patients, especially the ones with pacemakers or other electronical aids, the feasibility of establishing the neutron fluence through SEU quantification in an SRAM device provides new opportunities to estimate the associated risk in a clinical environment. Further work can be performed to investigate the correlation between the high-Z linac components and the neutron fluence during patient irradiation to better comprehend the variation between different linac types and manufacturers.

Provides society information that may include news, reviews or technical notes that should be of interest to practitioners and researchers.

Provides society information that may include news, reviews or technical notes that should be of interest to practitioners and researchers.

Growing interest in the commercialization of space (NewSpace) is leading to increased acceptance of commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) electronics and thus enabling use in space of the latest technologies developed for terrestrial applications. This opens new capabilities for applications in space missions. RF communication via satellites has been established for decades; traditionally used for military applications, it is becoming increasingly important for commercial users. Today, global connectivity and access to the Internet has never been so important, and the demand for worldwide connectivity increases significantly each year. Space-based Internet access is especially important for areas with poor terrestrial infrastructure, such as Africa and Antarctica. There are already geostationary-Earth orbit (GEO)-stationary-located satellites available such as Inmarsat or low-Earth orbit (LEO) satellite constellations like Iridium, which provide almost-global access to the Internet, but they are either very expensive or have low data rates and long latencies, so they are not very attractive. New solutions with high data rates, low latencies, and affordable fees are currently in development, such as StarLink, with its giga constellation [1] , [2] , and Amazon’s Project Kuiper [3] , [4] , [5] . So it is true: there really has been a change in the market with the NewSpace Era. With NewSpace, or in other words, the commercialization of space, traditional space missions with high-quality assurance requirements, very long design and manufacturing times, and extraordinary costs may become obsolete at a certain point, at least when it comes to commercial services like satellite-based Internet access. To decrease the lead time and costs of such missions, satellite designers and manufacturers need to rely on commercially available electronics, namely, COTS devices, which are usually much cheaper and have better performance and shorter lead times compared to space-qualified parts. In terms of performance, COTS devices have great benefits over space-qualified parts simply because the design, development, and qualification processes for space parts are very complex and take years before they are qualified and available for the market. It is likely that state-of-the-art space-qualified parts are 10 years behind what we currently have available for terrestrial applications, such as for the automotive or industrial markets [6] . One obvious reason is certainly that electronic parts manufacturers develop products for certain markets, and space is yet not one of the biggest or most attractive markets. But this has already started changing and big players such as Texas Instruments and Analog Devices are moving forward with the NewSpace wave and establishing ever-more products for commercial space applications. Truly, using state-of-the art electronics is not only of interest for the space-based Internet, there are also other space-related applications that can clearly benefit from using the latest technologies.

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