Advanced Radiation Protection (ARP)

Note: Please note that this is an “archived project” and is no longer updated. This article is meant for historical purposes only.

The Advanced Radiation Protection element assesses and matures disruptive technologies that show the potential to improve our capability to protect astronauts from the harmful effects of space radiation during deep space missions. The Thick GCR Shielding activity focuses on validating an optimal shield thickness for Galactic Cosmic Ray (GCR) mitigation and quantifying the uncertainty associated with space radiation transport calculations used in astronaut risk estimation. Thick target charged particle beam measurements and transport code benchmarks will be used to validate an optimal shield thickness and quantify transport uncertainty for a variety of spacecraft materials. A probabilistic propagation of uncertainty in particle fluence from thick shield transport results to astronaut exposure (effective dose and risk) in space vehicles will also be performed. The results of this effort will enable the design of minimal mass exploration vehicles for which astronaut radiation risk is as low as reasonably achievable.