Radiation Hazards to ESA’s Space Programmes and

Mitigation Approaches

Eamonn Daly, Alessandra Menicucci, Giovanni Santin, Petteri Nieminen

European Space AgencySpace Environments and Effects SectionESTEC, Noordwijk, The Netherlands

eamonn.daly@esa.intfirst.last@esa.int

www.space-env.esa.int

Content

• Context

• Radiation hazards

• What ESA is doing

ESA Programmes

Launchers

Earth Observation Telecommunications

Navigation

Science and Robotic Exploration

Human Spaceflight

Electra

All space systems have radiation issues;

radiation hardness assurance, including environment and

shielding analyses is mandatory

MPCV

Overview of Space Environments

Elements of the environment

Low altitude protonsHigh (MEO, GEO) altitude electrons

SPEsJupiter electrons

Cosmic rays

• EO missions / ISS• Galileo, Telecoms, Meteo• Generally not an difficult issue• Serious concern for JUICE• A general problem (SEE/humans)

• A well developed process agreed between agencies and industry

• Results in reliable space systems

• Quantitative evaluation of risks; designs to worst case; margin policies

Radiation hardness assurance

Largest efforts presently are related to JUICE, Galileo and (commercial) Telecom sats– Electron-rich environments (>20MeV @ Jupiter)– Mitigation by high-Z materials– JUICE: highly coordinated analyses (industry, ESA,

instrument teams (11))– Shielding tool developments

• G4 based (incl. “adjoint”); • framework for

collaborative analyses, • data exchange, • industry usability, etc…

– Experimental validation

Radiation shielding effortsin ESA

Shielding studies for human spaceflight

ErsmarkChavy-Macdonald

Human spaceflight shielding

• Emphasis is currently on passive shielding– The issue is ions– Low-Z materials– R&D on shielding materials…

(GSI, Brookhaven)– R&D “road-mapping”:

shielding; warning; countermeasures;etc.

– Some studies about active shielding…

Accelerator Studies- activities with GSI

Activities to exploit the very high energies available at GSI for investigating key problems in space radiation effects

•IBER

•Investigations and analysis of very high energy accelerators for radiation simulation (by Fraunhofer Inst. (prime), GSI, MapRAD (I) and SpaceIT (CH)

•Radiation Shielding by ISRU and Innovative Materials for EVA, Vehicle and Habitat (“ROSSINI”; recently completed)

•Study of radiation energy effects on electronic components with high energy heavy ion beams (planned)

•“ROSSINI-2” (planned)

Electronic Components Experiments

• Medical facility• In air• GSI provides:

• Video systems with remote control

• Laser and optical alignment systems (3-D)

• Linear tables remote controlled (belt conveyor)

• Robotic arm• Devices studied:

– DDR2 – SDRAM, – Power MOSFETs, – SEU monitor

Source: GSI

Cosmic Ray Shielding:Fragmentation cross-section experiments

Partial Fragments Total Cross Section (elemental targets)

Results• Successful acquisition of high quality validation data

ROSSINI: Radiation Shielding by ISRU* &Innovative Materials for EVA, Vehicles and Habitats

• 2-year ESA technology projectstarted in 2012:• Thales Alenia Space Italia

(prime contractor)• GSI (test and data analysis)

SpaceIT (simulations)

High-level objectives:•Select innovative shielding materials & systems;•Test with 1 GeV/n Iron beam or equivalent the proposed targets to prove shielding behaviour;•Give recommendation & guidelines for design & use of surface & transfer habitat implementing the ALARA principle

* in-situ resource utilisation

ROSSINI Campaign @ NSRL

Lunar Regolith

Lunar Concrete

Mars Regolith

• Rossini continuation (2014+)– Further characterization of standard and innovative

materials for passive radiation shielding for human spaceflight

• Investigation of application of FAIR facility– 100(200) T.m synchrotron (c.f. 18 for GSI)– GSI ~2 GeV/u; FAIR >30 GeV/u

• Interplanetary & Planetary Radiation Modelfor Human Spaceflight (IPRAM)– Also studies mission scenarios– Part of follow-on to CDF NEMS system study

• SSA Space Weather System {< can we warn of SPEs?}

• IBER follow-on research {< what is really the risk?}

• Ariadne call for ideas

Other complementary actions

• General points– We must address the real problem (GCRs, not SEPs)– Active systems are complex; we will need to

trade benefit vs. complexity (= risk, reliability, safety, cost),alongside alternatives (e.g. CDFs)

• Magnetic– Recent high quality ESA-sponsored study (4200023087)– Battiston et al. arXiv:1209.1907: Superconductive

Magnet for Radiation Shielding of Human Spacecraft– High mass, ~50 Tons (SLS can get 28 Tons to “escape”)

• Plasma shielding: – (e.g.) Bamford et al., but yet to demonstrate

deflection of high energy particles

• Electrostatic: – extreme high voltages– problems of bremsstrahlung and plasma interactions– Metzger (2004) proposes multipole solutions

Active shielding

48 roadmaps covering 9 Technology Areas

• Space weather systems (monitoring, warning)

• Shielding & design investigations (nominal; shelters)

• Pharmacology

• Active shielding is currently not considered

• Roadmapping is iterative

“Technology for exploration”2012 roadmaps

• ESA has many activities related to radiation shielding

• Emphasis is passive shielding• Much work on unmanned systems• We can expect growth in human spaceflight

issues through association in the near term in the NASA-ESA MPCV (lunar?)

• Expected re-visiting of the roadmaps depending on HSF direction decisions

Conclusions

Thank you

Back-ups

20202014

Radbelt e

Radbelt p

SPE peak