RADIATION MEASUREMENTS IN SPACE WITH SPECIAL FOCUS ON THE MARE EXPERIMENT DURING THE NASA ARTEMIS I MISSION

Abstract

The space radiation environment is the most complex radiation environment humans can encounter. It differs in nature to that on Earth, consisting mostly of highly energetic ions from protons up to iron ions (galactic cosmic radiation, GCR), resulting in radiation levels far exceeding the ones present on Earth for occupational radiation workers. In addition, sporadic solar particle events (SPEs) may increase the radiation levels in short time scales. On-board the International Space Station (ISS) astronauts are still partly protected by Earth’s magnetic field which is not the case anymore when flying in free space as for the upcoming explorations missions to the Moon in the frame of the Artemis program. Within the NASA Artemis I mission in late 2022 the Matroshka AstroRad Radiation Experiment (MARE) was flown as one of the secondary radiation research payloads inside the Orion crew capsule. The aim of MARE is amongst other to determine the skin and organ doses in two anthropomorphic female phantoms, namely Helga and Zohar, where Zohar is in addition equipped with a newly developed (by StemRad) radiation protection vest (AstroRad). MARE is an international joint experiment with partners as NASA, Lockheed Martin, Israel Space Agency (ISA) and StemRad as well as universities and research organizations around the world. The talk will provide an overview of what we know about the radiation environment onboard the ISS as well as in free space and will put the MARE results in the relevant context.