’In order to protect the future sPHENIX detector from spontaneous and asynchronous firing of one of the five RHIC abort kickers, mechanical relays were added to the triggering channel for each of them. The mechanical relays add several milliseconds to the delay between the detection of a failure or beam loss and the beam being safely disposed of. In order to account for this delay new inputs were included into the RHIC Machine Protection System to ensure detection of abnormal conditions as early as possible. These inputs include system diagnostics and beam measurements such as Beam Position Monitor signals. In this paper we detail the upgrades that will allow reliable operations with high intensity and high energy ion beams and the new detector as well as related operational challenges and how they were addressed. Proceedings of the 13th International Particle Accelerator Conference, IPAC2022, Bangkok, Thailand
