Cosmic ray dose monitoring using RadFET sensors of the Rosetta instruments SESAME and COSIMA (original) (raw)

Radiation survey in the International Space Station

Journal of Space Weather and Space Climate, 2015

The project ALTEA-shield/survey is part of an European Space Agency (ESA)-ILSRA (International Life Science Research Announcement) program and provides a detailed study of the International Space Station (ISS) (USLab and partly Columbus) radiation environment. The experiment spans over 2 years, from September 20, 2010 to September 30, 2012, for a total of about 1.5 years of effective measurements. The ALTEA detector system measures all heavy ions above helium and, to a limited extent, hydrogen and helium (respectively, in 25 Mev-45 MeV and 25 MeV/n-250 MeV/n energy windows) while tracking every individual particle. It measures independently the radiation along the three ISS coordinate axes. The data presented consist of flux, dose, and dose equivalent over the time of investigation, at the different surveyed locations. Data are selected from the different geographic regions (low and high latitudes and South Atlantic Anomaly, SAA). Even with a limited acceptance window for the proton contribution, the flux/dose/dose equivalent results as well as the radiation spectra provide information on how the radiation risks change in the different surveyed sites. The large changes in radiation environment found among the measured sites, due to the different shield/mass distribution, require a detailed Computer-Aided Design (CAD) model to be used together with these measurements for the validation of radiation models in space habitats. Altitude also affects measured radiation, especially in the SAA. In the period of measurements, the altitude (averaged over each minute) ranged from 339 km to 447 km. Measurements show the significant shielding effect of the ISS truss, responsible for a consistent amount of reduction in dose equivalent (and so in radiation quality). Measured Galactic Cosmic Ray (GCR) dose rates at high latitude range from 0.354 ± 0.002 nGy/s to 0.770 ± 0.006 nGy/s while dose equivalent from 1.21 ± 0.04 nSv/s to 6.05 ± 0.09 nSv/s. The radiation variation over the SAA is studied. Even with the reduced proton sensitivity, the high day-by-day variability, as well as the strong altitude dependence is clearly observed. The ability of filtering out this contribution from the data is presented as a tool to construct a radiation data set well mimicking deep space radiation, useful for model validations and improvements.

Space Radiation exposure calculations during different solar and galactic cosmic ray activities

arXiv: Space Physics, 2016

The primary components of radiation in interplanetary space are galactic cosmic rays (GCR) and solar cosmic radiation (SCR). GCR originates from outside of our Solar System, while SCR consists of low energy solar wind particles that flow constantly from the Sun and the highly energetic solar particle events (SPEs) that originate from magnetically disturbed regions of the Sun, which sporadically emit bursts of energetic charged particles. Exposure to space radiation may place astronauts and aviation crews at significant risk for numerous biological effects resulting from exposure to radiation from a major SPE or combined SPE and GCR. Doses absorbed by tissues vary for different SPEs and model systems have been developed to calculate the radiation doses that could have been received by astronauts during previous SPEs. For this reason a new application DYASTIMA-R which constitutes a successor of the Dynamic Atmospheric Shower Tracking Interactive Model Application (DYASTIMA) is being d...

Space radiation measurements on-board ISS--the DOSMAP experiment

Radiation Protection Dosimetry, 2005

The experiment 'Dosimetric Mapping' conducted as part of the science program of NASA's Human Research Facility (HRF) between March and August 2001 was designed to measure integrated total absorbed doses (ionising radiation and neutrons), heavy ion fluxes and its energy, mass and linear energy transfer (LET) spectra, time-dependent count rates of charged particles and their corresponding dose rates at different locations inside the US Lab at the International Space Station. Owing to the variety of particles and energies, a dosimetry package consisting of thermoluminescence dosemeter (TLD) chips and nuclear track detectors with and without converters (NTDPs), a silicon dosimetry telescope (DOSTEL), four mobile silicon detector units (MDUs) and a TLD reader unit (PILLE) with 12 TLD bulbs as dosemeters was used. Dose rates of the ionising part of the radiation field measured with TLD bulbs applying the PILLE readout system at different locations varied between 153 and 231 lGy d À1 . The dose rate received by the active devices fits excellent to the TLD measurements and is significantly lower compared with measurements for the Shuttle (STS) to MIR missions. The comparison of the absorbed doses from passive and active devices showed an agreement within AE10%. The DOSTEL measurements in the HRF location yielded a mean dose equivalent rate of 535 lSv d À1 . DOSTEL measurements were also obtained during the Solar Particle

Some cosmic radiation dose measurements aboard flights connecting Zagreb Airport

Applied Radiation and Isotopes, 2008

When primary particles from space, mainly protons, enter the atmosphere, they produce interactions with air nuclei, and cosmic-ray showers are induced. The radiation field at aircraft altitude is complex, with different types of particles, mainly photons, electrons, positrons and neutrons, with a large energy range.

Results of dosimetric measurements in space missions

Advances in Space Research, 1998

Detector packages consisting of plastic nuclear track detectors, nuclear emulsions, and thermoluminescence detectors were exposed at different locations inside the space laboratory Spacelab and at the astronauts' body and in different sections of the MIR space station. Total dose, particle fluence rate and linear energy transfer (LET) spectra of heavy ions, number of nuclear disinte~ations and fast neutron fluence rates were determined of each exposure. The dose equivalent received by the Payload specialists (PSs) were calculated from the measurements, they range from 190 pSv d" to 770 pSv d-'. Finally, a preliminary investigation of results from a particle telescope of two silicon detectors, first used in the last BIORACK mission on STS 76, is reported.

Time Profile of Cosmic Radiation Exposure During the EXPOSE-E Mission: The R3DE Instrument

Astrobiology, 2012

The aim of this paper is to present the time profile of cosmic radiation exposure obtained by the Radiation Risk Radiometer-Dosimeter during the EXPOSE-E mission in the European Technology Exposure Facility on the International Space Station's Columbus module. Another aim is to make the obtained results available to other EXPOSE-E teams for use in their data analysis. Radiation Risk Radiometer-Dosimeter is a low-mass and small-dimension automatic device that measures solar radiation in four channels and cosmic ionizing radiation as well. The main results of the present study include the following: (1) three different radiation sources were detected and quantified-galactic cosmic rays (GCR), energetic protons from the South Atlantic Anomaly (SAA) region of the inner radiation belt, and energetic electrons from the outer radiation belt (ORB); (2) the highest daily averaged absorbed dose rate of 426 lGy d -1 came from SAA protons; (3) GCR delivered a much smaller daily absorbed dose rate of 91.1 lGy d -1 , and the ORB source delivered only 8.6 lGy d -1 . The analysis of the UV and temperature data is a subject of another article .

Space radiation dose and particle flux distribution from low Earth to Moon orbits

Journal scientific and applied research

The space radiation is a very important component of the space weather and affects both the space crew and electronic devices in space flights. The Bulgarian scientists together with number of international partners for more than 20 years conduct research of the ionizing radiation distribution from the Earth surface to the Moon orbit. In this paper we present some results for space radiation doses observed during number of experiments on the Mir manned space station, International Space Station, on unmanned satellites Foton-M2, Foton-M3 around the Earth and on Chandrayan-1 satellite around the Moon. Discussed is the contribution of the galactic cosmic rays and trapped radiation to the particle fluxes and absorbed doses. Key words: Ionizing Space radiation, Galactic cosmic rays, Solar cosmic rays, Earth radiation belts, Space radiation measurements, Low Earth orbit, Moon orbit.