Radiation Shielding Evaluation of Spacecraft Walls Against Heavy Ions Using Microdosimetry
Stefania Peracchi, Benjamin James, Federico Pagani, Vladimir Pan, James Vohradsky, David Bolst, Dale A. Prokopovich, Susanna Guatelli, Marco Petasecca, Michael Lerch, Sung Hyun Lee, Taku Inaniwa, Naruhiro Matsufuji, Marco Povoli, Angela Kok, Michael Jackson, Timothy Squire, Anatoly Rosenfeld, Linh T. Tran
Abstract
Despite the low contribution of heavy ions to the total fluence in the space radiation environment, their radiobiological effect on the human body is extremely high. In this article, we investigated the radiation field which resulted from the interaction of galactic cosmic rays (GCRs), specifically some heavy ions and energies, typically encountered in space with a realistic multilayer sample of the International Space Station (ISS) Columbus module's shielding wall. The quality factor, Q, and the normalized dose equivalent, H, derived from microdosimetric measurements for C, Ne, and Si ions behind different spacecraft wall configurations and materials are presented in this article. Particularly, carbon fiber, polyoxymethylene, and perspex with same areal density compared to currently used aluminum were investigated.