Total Ionizing Dose Radiation Testing of NVIDIA Jetson Orin NX System on Module

In space applications, the adoption of commercial-off- the-shelf (COTS) single-board computers (SBCs) is increasingly favored due to their size, weight, and power (SWaP) efficiency. This study addresses the critical need for understanding the radiation tolerance of such devices within low earth orbit (LEO) space missions, where intense ionizing radiation presents a substantial risk to electronic component functionality. Focusing on the NVIDIA Jetson Orin NX, a leading COTS SBC, we evaluated the radiation resilience of both its 8GB and 16GB models under total ionizing dose (TID) conditions. Our investigation reveals significant consistency in radiation tolerance among the models tested, surviving past 36.20 krad(Si). This underscores the considerable resilience to the effects of radiation and the absence of performance degradation despite challenges related to thermal management. These findings are crucial for the aerospace community, informing the deployment of COTS SBCs in environments with high radiation exposure and impacting considerations for mission success and device longevity.