Imagine you're planning a road trip, but instead of potholes, the road is full of invisible, high-speed particles that can damage your car's electronics and harm passengers. That's what deep space is like for spacecraft and astronauts. The PAN team built a compact detector — like a weather station for space radiation — that can identify exactly what type of particle is hitting you, how fast it's going, and how dangerous it is. It measures particles so energetic they punch right through normal shielding, giving crew and ground control a real-time warning system.
Highly energetic particles in deep space (above 100 MeV/nucleon) punch through conventional shielding, threatening astronaut health and damaging spacecraft electronics. Current instruments cannot precisely measure the full spectrum and composition of these penetrating particles in real time. As commercial space travel and deep space missions ramp up, there is no standard onboard device to provide continuous radiation hazard warnings.
A complete ground-based demonstrator of the Penetrating Particle Analyser, integrating pixel detector modules (55µm×55µm cells on 300µm silicon), silicon strip tracker modules, time-of-flight detector modules, magnetic spectrometer sectors, data handling units, and a mechanical support structure — 14 distinct hardware deliverables out of 29 total.
If you are a spacecraft manufacturer designing vehicles for deep space missions — this project developed a fully integrated particle analyser demonstrator that measures radiation above 100 MeV/nucleon in real time. It could become a standard onboard safety instrument, reducing mission risk and enabling longer crew missions beyond low Earth orbit.
If you are a space weather service provider struggling with gaps in energetic particle data — this project built detector modules (pixel, tracker, and time-of-flight) that precisely measure particle flux and composition. Deploying PAN-based sensors in a permanent space network could dramatically improve your predictive models for solar storms.
If you are a radiation safety company looking to serve the growing commercial space travel market — this project delivered a demonstrator with 3 DHU prototype boards, 2 pixel modules, 2 TOF modules, and 3 tracker modules, all integrated with a magnet system. This proven hardware design could be licensed and miniaturized into crew dosimetry devices for commercial space stations.
The project was funded with EUR 2,637,500 in EU contribution across 4 partners. Licensing terms would need to be negotiated directly with the University of Geneva as coordinator. Since all partners are academic or research institutions, they may be open to licensing arrangements with industry partners.
The project delivered a working demonstrator with multiple subsystem modules (pixel, tracker, TOF, DHU, magnet sectors), each produced with spares for testing. The component designs — including 55µm×55µm pixel detectors and silicon strip sensors — use established particle physics fabrication techniques. Scaling to serial production would require an industrial manufacturing partner, which the consortium currently lacks.
This was a Research and Innovation Action (RIA) under Horizon 2020. Under standard EU grant rules, IP belongs to the partners who generated it. The University of Geneva (coordinator) and 3 other academic partners across Switzerland, Czech Republic, and Italy hold the rights. No industrial partners are in the consortium, so all IP sits with academic institutions.
The team delivered a complete demonstrator unit with integrated subsystems, which puts this at roughly TRL 5-6. However, going from a lab demonstrator to a space-qualified, flight-ready instrument requires further engineering, vibration testing, thermal qualification, and radiation hardening. Based on available project data, no commercial product exists yet.
PAN fills a specific observation gap: particles in the 100 MeV/nucleon to GeV/nucleon energy range. Current instruments either measure lower-energy particles or lack the precision to identify particle type and energy simultaneously. The combination of pixel detectors, silicon strip trackers, time-of-flight sensors, and a magnetic spectrometer in one compact unit is what sets it apart.
Any instrument deployed in space must meet the requirements of the launch provider and mission operator. Based on available project data, the demonstrator was built for ground testing and proof of concept, not yet qualified for spaceflight. Space qualification (vibration, thermal vacuum, radiation hardness) would be a necessary next step before any mission integration.
The consortium is compact — 4 partners across Switzerland, Czech Republic, and Italy — led by the University of Geneva. Notably, there are zero industry partners and zero SMEs. All participants are universities (3) or research organizations (1). This is a purely academic consortium, which is typical for a FET Open project pushing the boundaries of new technology. For a business looking to commercialize PAN, this means the technology is available for licensing without competing commercial claims, but it also means no partner has manufacturing or commercialization experience. An industrial partner would need to step in for space qualification, miniaturization, and serial production.
University of Geneva, Switzerland — search for PAN project lead in the physics department
Want to explore licensing this radiation detection technology for commercial space applications? SciTransfer can connect you with the PAN team and help structure a technology transfer agreement.
