BAE Systems announced on 2026-09-16 that it received $16 million in Defense Production Act Title III funding through the Department of War’s Warfighting Investments, Resourcing, and Execution directorate to demonstrate and qualify its RH45® radiation-hardened 45 nm technology for space missions.[1] The project is intended to reestablish the RH45 ASIC Storefront and expand domestic production capacity for radiation-hardened microelectronics, with production tied to GlobalFoundries’ 45 nm silicon-on-insulator process in Malta, New York.[1][4]
The technical significance is supply-chain resilience for space-grade chips that can survive harsh radiation while offering better power and performance than older generations.[1][13] For lunar habitation, that matters because the Moon has no atmospheric shielding, so electronics for habitat control, navigation, communications, robotics, and fault management need high reliability, long life, and fewer replacement cycles; a trusted domestic RH45 supply reduces dependence on fragile single-source parts.[1][8][13]
The Ark should monitor whether RH45 reaches production qualification, whether the RH45 ASIC Storefront resumes as a customer-accessible design and manufacturing hub, and whether the platform appears in flight computers such as BAE’s Endura SBC.[1][8][13] Priority research should assess RH45-class parts for lunar-rated compute nodes, radiation-tolerant control networks, and stockpiling strategies for long-duration habitat systems, especially if the platform becomes broadly available to civil and commercial space customers.[8][13]