Comment by wildzzz

One downside of using non-rad hard parts is degradation from TID (gamma) and latch up effects. You can have chips monitoring other chips to reset whenever they latch up but TID is mostly permanent. The good thing is that TID in LEO, where SpaceX mostly operates, is relatively lower than GEO so they can get by with mostly commercial parts. It's not like the big defense contractors haven't figured out the same thing, they do fly stuff using commercial parts as well, they are just slower to adopt the same culture. SpaceX and the companies that built components using commercial parts are building the new-space industry.