The ROSETTA mission, lead by ESA, will be launched from Kourou by Ariane V in January 2003 and after a long trip, the spacecraft will reach the comet Wirtanen 46P in 2011. The mission includes a lander, built by an European consortium under german leadership (DLR), on which France has a large participation and is concerned by providing a part of the payload and some lander sub-systems.Among these, CNES delivers a specific battery assembly in order to comply with the mission environment and profile, avoiding particularly the use of radioisotopic heaters and radioisotopic electrical generators commonlly used for such missions far from the Sun. The battery includes a pack of lithium-thionyle sulfate cells having a large capacity and a small self discharge rate, able to achieve the nominal lander mission on the comet. A secondary stage, including rechargeable lithium-ion batteries, is used as complement for the main phases of the nominal mission, but is mainly aimed to achieve the extended mission when the comet will come close enough from the Sun in conjunction with the lander solar cells. The battery includes also a specific electronic system dedicated to the battery handling and secondary cells balancing, a mechanical and thermal structure designed, built and qualified in order to comply with low mass constraints.This battery system is presently integrated into the Rosetta Lander flight model and will leave the Earth at the beginning of next year. For the future, such a development and experience could be usefull in the frame of other similar cometary missions. (C) 2003 International Astronautical Federation.

Tissue equivalent and Solid State Detector (SSD) measurements of the radiation environment inside the Mir space station were performed during the Antares mission in 1992 and long period after it. Interesting results about radiation measurements show (a) the South Atlantic Anomaly (SAA) crossing, (b) the increase of radiation near the poles and (c) the effects of solar eruptions (the most important one occurring in early November 1992). These data give also information about the dose and the quality factor of the radiation received by the cosmonauts during different missions.

Since 1988 high sensitivity semiconductor dosimeter-radiometer "Liulin" worked on board of MIR space station. Device measured the absorbed dose rate and the flux of penetrating particles. The analysis of the data shows the following new results: In October 1989 and after March 24, 1991, two additional stable maximums in flux channel were observed in the southern-eastern part of South Atlantic Anomaly (SAA). These two maximums existed at least several months and seem to be due to trapped high energy electron and proton fluxes. In April 1991 additional maximums were localized in the following geographical coordinates regions: latitude = (-35 degrees)-(-50 degrees) longitude = 332 degrees-l6 degrees and lat.(-46 degrees)-(-52 degrees) long. 360 degrees-60 degrees. Additional maximums diffusion occurs inside radiation belt. Appearance of these maximums seems to be closely connected with preceding powerful solar proton events and associated geomagnetic dynamics of new belt disturbances. Alter the series of solar proton events in June 1991 we observed significant enhancement of this new radiation belt formation. To achieve sufficient accuracy of dose rate predictions in low Earth orbits the structure and dynamics of new belt should be carefully analyzed to be included in a new environment model. From the inter comparison of the data from "Liulin" and French developed tissue equivalent LET spectrometer NAUSICAA in the time period August-November 1992 we come to the following conclusions: Mainly there is good agreement between both data sets for absorbed dose in the region of SAA; Different situation of the instruments on the station can explain the cases when differences up to 2 times are observed; At high latitudes usually the tissue equivalent absorbed dose observations are 2 times larger than "Liulin" doses.

Radiation risk on a future long-duration manned space mission appears to be one of the basic factors in planning and designing the mission. Since 1988 different active dosimetric investigations has been performed on board the MIR space station by the Bulgarian-Russian dosimeter-radiometer LIULIN and French tissue-equivalent proportional counters CIRCE and NAUSICAA. A joint French-Bulgarian-Russian dosimetry experiment and the dosimetry-radiometry system RADIUS-MD have been developed for the future MARS-96 mission. On the base of the results and experience of these investigations a conception for a new radiation dose control system for the future orbital stations,lunar bases and interplanetary space ships is proposed. The proposed system which consists of different instruments will allow personal radiation control for crew members, radiation monitoring inside and outside each habitat, analysis and forecasting of the situation and will suggest procedures to minimize the radiation risk.