essive functional density, and power efficient elements for general purpose use in satellite payload systems. Future work in the commercialization of these technologies may yield performance effective and SEU immune control and processing functions. Summary Introduction has been provided to the general characteristics of satellite telecommunications systems, including the trade studies which network systems engineering must conduct to arrive at an orbit architecture for the system. Issues present in the design of satellite systems which result from consideration of the natural space environment have been briefly discussed; in particular, the charged particle space radiation environment and its effects on devices and systems. Design for compatibility with the space radiation environment includes tolerance to mission integrated total ionizing and displacement damage effects, elimination of destructive single event effects, and applications techniques to deal with transient fault and error conditions. Fault tolerance techniques applicable to fault avoidance, masking and detection/recovery have been discussed. Fault avoidance includes provisions which attenuate the severity of the environment through consideration of alternative orbit architecture, the effectiveness of shielding, and the capability to reduce collected charge and to suppress circuit response. Fault masking includes error detection and correction strategies and redundancy techniques. Introduction to fault detection, containment, recovery, and effects criticality analysis was also presented. Acknowledgements The author would like to thank Dan Fleetwood, Lew Cohn, Joe Hoffman, Larry Walker, and Mark Limon for their critical reading of this manuscript and helpful suggestions. 9.0 References [Allenspach96] M. Allenspach, C Dachs, G.H. Johnson, R.D. Schrimpf, E. Lorfevre, J.M. Palau, J.R. Brews, K.F. Galloway, J.L. Titus, and C.F. Wheatley, "SEGR and SEB in N- Channel Power MOSFETs", IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science, Vol. 43, No. 6, pp2927-2931, (Decemb