Infrared sensors operating in satellites must maintain operation in the intense radiation environment of orbit. Before an infrared sensor is flown, its anticipated radiation damage rate in orbit should be assessed terrestrially to ensure sufficiently long sensor lifetime and sufficiently low error rate in orbit. Photons play an invaluable role in helping to characterize this sensitivity to the infrared material itself and the CMOS read-out circuity. Time-resolved photoluminescence provides the rate of reduction in the minority carrier lifetime with the increase in SRH defect concentration under proton irradiation to predict detector degradation. CMOS circuitry, providing the back-end signal read-out from the infrared detector, is particularly sensitive to single event effects (SEEs) caused by heavy ion dense charge generation in orbit. To mimic this dense charge generation, a new facility under development using a focused laser interacting via two-photon absorption is discussed. Together, these characterization methods employ photons to query the radiation degradation to infrared focal plane arrays intended for operation in the space environment.