Speaker
Ms
Martina Giraudo
(Thales Alenia Space Italia S.p.a.)
Description
Activity: TRP
Contractor(s): Thales Alenia Space (I), GSI (D), SpaceIT (CH).
Technical Officer: Alessandra Menicucci
Summary:
SPE (Solar Particle Events) and GCR (Galactic Cosmic Rays) are the two main components of the space radiation environment that pose a great risk to the human health during an interplanetary human exploration mission. While SPE fluxes can be mitigated using well known plastic materials, astronauts involved in future long exploration missions (e.g. Mars) will be exposed also to a GCR radiation environment that is not easy to shield maintaining at the same time the mission feasibility due to the high energies and mass of the particles involved.
The aim of the “ROSSINI" (RadiatiOn Shielding by ISRU and INnovative materIals for EVA, vehicles and habitats) project was to investigate shielding materials to be used in deep space and planetary exploration.
Simulants of materials that can be found on Moon and Mars planetary surfaces (e.g., regolith) and innovative materials rich in Hydrogen have been selected and tested with high energy (2.5 GeV) protons and 1 GeV/n Fe-56 ions (taken as representative of the whole GCR spectrum). Dose reduction, Bragg peak and neutron yield have been calculated on a subset of the irradiated targets. Geant4 Monte Carlo simulations through Geant4 Radiation Analysis for Space (GRAS) tools have been performed and compared to the obtained experimental data, to benchmark the computer codes.
Finally, a simplified inflatable habitat for exploration missions has been defined using the innovative materials evaluated in the ROSSINI study and 3D Geant4 Monte Carlo simulations have been performed, to compare the dose reduction resulting inside the simplified habitat with different shielding solutions.
