Balancing Reliability & Cyber Resilience in Space and on Earth: Part 2 of 2

Engineers now face a core challenge: design a seamless, scalable system capable of trusted execution in any contested environment, moving past simple Rad-Hard or Rad-Tolerant chip selection based solely on TID or SEE. Radiation robustness and cyber resilience reinforce each other — they aren't separate concerns — because radiation events mimic cyberattacks, and radiation faults compromise secure hardware. Part one of this technical blog confirmed that Mission Assurance requires both radiation and cyber resilience.

Survival Strategy: An Integrated Ecosystem for Mission Assurance

The solution lies in adopting an integrated ecosystem approach that moves beyond the component level. This survival strategy requires a unified architecture—combining Rad-Hard and Rad-Tolerant hardware with advanced, cyber-resilient software—to easily scale across orbits, from Low Earth Orbit (LEO) and Medium Earth Orbit (MEO) to Geostationary Orbit (GEO), cis-Lunar, and Deep Space. This approach directly supports the industry's shift toward integrated mission assurance by ensuring that both physical reliability and cyber integrity are maintained across diverse mission profiles.

VORAGO’s hardware and software roadmap aligns directly with the industry requirements to easily scale across Low Earth Orbit (LEO), Medium Earth Orbit (MEO), Geostationary Orbit (GEO), cis-Lunar, and Deep Space, directly supporting the shift toward integrated mission assurance.

1.   New VA4 Rad-Hard and Rad-Tolerant Microcontrollers

• VORAGO’s new VA4 rad-tolerant MCUs expand upon the already highly reliable VA4 rad-hard MCUs – completing a full line-up suitable for any orbit and multiple price points.

• The VA4 family – built on high-performance Arm® Cortex®-M4F architecture –is the industry's first and only MCU family that achieves complete 100% compatibility (software, hardware, and electrical) between its rad-hard and rad-tolerant chip designs.

• Proven in LEO, GEO, and deep space missions and defense programs requiring reliability on a rapid schedule.

• Ideal for constellation compute, motor control, high-speed communications, and avionics logic.

2. Dual-Core VA5 Rad-Hardened and Rad-Tolerant Microcontrollers

• Advanced Arm® Cortex®-M55 dual-core architecture with high-speed compute power.

• Enhanced memory protection and built-in error recovery.

• Designed for hybrid missions where reliability and radiation are equal considerations.

3. VA7 Rad-Tolerant Microprocessors with Built-In GPU and Security

• Dual Arm® Cortex®-A72 cores: up to 1.5 GHz with L1 and shared 1 MB L2 (with ECC) with real application processing power for image compression, sensor fusion, and AI inferencing at the edge for space applications.

• Security built in: Arm TrustZone®, Secure Boot, and crypto offload for mission-critical chain-of-trust and accelerated cryptographic workloads.

• Embedded GPU for edge AI: integrated 3D GPU delivering ~10.4 GFLOPS, enabling vision, ML inferencing, and graphics tasks without power-hungry discrete accelerators.

• Mission-grade I/O & throughput: multiple high-speed interfaces — PCIe Gen3, USB 3.0, SATA, and up to 6 Ethernet ports (up to 2.5 Gbps) with an integrated 4-port TSN switch for deterministic networking.

• Robust memory & data integrity: DDR3L/DDR4 controller with SECDED ECC for reliable on-board data processing.

• Space and extreme-temp qualified design: engineered for radiation-tolerant operation and wide temperature ranges (designed for space/edge harshness). Ideal for cubesats, smallsats, lunar rovers, and rugged avionics.

4. Enhanced Cyber Security from Specialized Software Partners

VORAGO partners with several hardware and software providers to enhance our roadmap — and to scale quickly. One such example in the cyber security space is wolfSSL – founded in 2004 with approximately 34 employees that specializes in lightweight, high-performance cryptography and embedded security solutions, including SSL/TLS libraries, for resource-constrained and mission-critical environments like IoT and automotive.

Integrating its wolfBoot secure bootloader into our VA4 family of rad-hard microcontrollers provides VORAGO customers with enterprise-grade secure boot and reliable Over-the-Air (OTA) update capabilities. This crucial combination enables the rapid deployment of mission-critical applications by ensuring that only authenticated firmware executes on the device, thereby implementing robust security measures even in harsh radiation environments.

This enhanced security functionality is achieved through a dedicated Hardware Abstraction Layer (HAL) within the wolfBoot framework, which is designed to seamlessly interface with the VORAGO Software Development Kit (SDK) and provides comprehensive support for the following core technical functions:

• External SPI FRAM Flash Operations: Facilitating secure and non-volatile storage essential for boot and update processes.

• UART-based Debugging: Allowing necessary diagnostic and configuration work during development and testing.

• Proper Initialization of the Arm® Cortex®-M4 Core: Including necessary configurations for mission-critical reliability, such as:

  • Watchdog: Ensuring system health and timely recovery.

  • Clock: Guaranteeing precise timing for secure operations.

  • EDAC: Enhancing data integrity against radiation-induced errors.

VORAGO’s strategy is not merely about surviving radiation; it’s about ensuring trusted, secure computation in radiation-intense environments.

Guidance to Engineers and Program Managers: Selecting the Right Chip

When evaluating a radiation-tolerant or radiation-hardened microcontroller or microprocessor, consider:

1. Radiation profile (TID, SEE spectrum, orbit, shielding)

2. Mission duration vs. cost constraints

3. Security requirements (secure boot, tamper resistance, authenticated communications)

4. System-level fault management (can the processor actively recover?)

5. Vendor roadmap and long-term availability

6. Integration with existing flight software ecosystems

7. Mission scalability: Select a vendor that offers both rad-hard and rad-tolerant microcontrollers and microprocessors that are 100% pin-compatible and software-compatible, enabling seamless migration across mission classes.

A processor decision made today affects not only reliability — but also cyber survivability — in tomorrow’s contested space domain.

Radiation-hardened and radiation-tolerant chips each serve essential roles in modern missions — from Deep Space and satellite constellations to unmanned, terrestrial vehicles and energy exploration in the world’s harshest environments.

But as cybersecurity becomes a core requirement for spacecraft architectures, the boundaries between reliable hardware and secure hardware are dissolving. VORAGO’s microprocessors and microcontrollers embody this integrated vision: high-reliability, rad-tolerant or rad-hardened choices architected for future cyber-resilient missions.