How many? space radiation will the astronauts of the next Artemis mission around the Moon be subjected to? To answer this question, two dummies have been sent into space. Some useful instruments have been placed around the spaceship and on the dummies, called Zohar and Helga. to measure radiation and are called dosimeters. These have allowed us to collect important data that have shown that radiation exposure can vary depending on the position within Orion.
And again, the data obtained allowed us to discover that the best shielded areas, compared to the worst, received much less radiation. Exactly four times less than the other areas. The dummies sent into space had dosimeters on them but were not dressed in the same way. Specifically, Zohar was wearing a protective jacket thanks to which it was possible to evaluate the different doses of radiation received. Well, the mission allowed us to discover that the astronauts will be able to experience about 30 millisieverts, that is approximately 60% of the maximum permitted dose for a radiation worker.
Way to reduce radiation exposure revealed
Many will be wondering right now what causes all this. And to the question in question we can answer by revealing that a sixth of all this is caused by the Van Allen belts, or bands of radiation that are found right around the Planet. However, there is a rather effective way to be able to reduce radiation exposureand Artemis has demonstrated this. This method consists of orienting the spacecraft 90 degrees during the flyby through the inner belt. Thanks to this data, it will therefore be possible to plan future Artemis missions well.
Sergi Vaquer Araujo, head of the Space Medicine Team and co-author of the study, revealed in a statement sent to IFLScience that the data collected will allow us to estimate the radiation exposure for: “ESA astronauts before their journey into deep space“. And in this way it will also be possible to guarantee their safety both during missions to the Moon and on other occasions.
