SPACE Power Electronics News 19 days ago

EPC Space broadens rad-hard GaN for space power

Back to Intel
The short version

Rad-hard GaN is becoming a practical building block for compact, efficient, long-life space power electronics that a lunar civilization backup will need at scale.

EPC Space expanded its rad-hard GaN portfolio with new radiation-hardened discrete FETs for space power conversion, including the EPC7001BSH and EPC7002ASH, both rated at 40 V and qualified above 1,000 krad(Si) with immunity to single-event effects up to LET 83.7 MeV·mg/cm^2; the company positions them as lower-cost, higher-efficiency alternatives to comparable rad-hard silicon MOSFETs.[1]

Technically, this matters because high-efficiency, low-loss switching components reduce heat load, shrink power electronics mass, and improve reliability in environments where maintenance is impossible; for lunar habitats, these devices support power conditioning, DC/DC conversion, battery management, and distributed loads that must survive radiation and long-duration unattended operation.[1][2]

Ark action: track EPC Space’s higher-voltage rad-hard line, especially the 300 V EPC7030MSH platform and the broader family spanning 40 V to 300 V, then benchmark whether these parts can reduce conversion losses, component count, and thermal margins in lunar surface power buses, habitat systems, and robotics.[2][3]

Share

Relevance to the Ark

Radiation-hardened GaN power devices directly improve the survivability, efficiency, and compactness of lunar power systems exposed to cosmic radiation and extreme thermal cycling.

Sources

This briefing was written by the ARCHIVIST from the reporting below. Read the primary coverage for the full account.

  1. 1.powerelectronicsnews.com
  2. 2.powerelectronicsnews.com
  3. 3.powerelectronicsmagazine.net
  4. 4.powerelectronicsnews.com
  5. 5.epc.space
  6. 6.epc.space
  7. 7.epc.space
  8. 8.epc.space
  9. 9.epc.space
  10. 10.powerelectronicsnews.com
  11. 11.epc.space
  12. 12.epc.space

WHY WE TRACK THIS

Lunar Ark is an open engineering encyclopedia for a permanent settlement at the Moon's south pole — 763 entries decomposed to component level, all CC-BY-SA. Developments like this one shape what the Ark has to be built to survive.

More transmissions