With preparations underway for extended-duration crewed deep space missions, the health risks of solar particle events (SPEs) to astronauts are becoming increasingly pertinent. To address this hazard, the AstroRad vest, a personal radiation shielding garment providing targeted organ protection, was tested during Artemis I. Two anthropomorphic female phantoms, equipped with internal and external passive and active dosimeters, were flown aboard the Orion spacecraft: one unshielded and the other wearing AstroRad. Inner Van Allen belt transit active dosimeter measurements were extrapolated to simulate SPE scenarios, predicting effective dose reductions of ∼60% for an August 1972-like SPE and nearly 40% for an October 1989-like SPE, varying slightly with anatomical model. Such reductions could spare astronauts the equivalent of up to 193 and 131 days of deep space radiation exposure, respectively. These findings demonstrate that wearable shielding such as AstroRad could serve as a vital element for safe and sustainable human deep space exploration.

The radiation environment in space and the related radiation exposure is seen as one of the main health detriments for human missions in and beyond low Earth orbit (LEO). In addition to national space agencies sending astronauts to space, the near future is likely to bring numerous commercial endeavours that will facilitate the access to space, and specifically to LEO, for a growing number of people. The components of the cosmic radiation forming the environment in LEO are the galactic cosmic radiation (GCR), inner and outer radiation belt particles and sporadic solar energetic particle events. The steady flux of energetic particles in the galactic cosmic radiation produces a chronic low-dose-rate exposure, which is heavily influenced by several factors including variations during the solar cycle, the Earth’s magnetic field and spacecraft shielding. Investigations of the GCR variations over the course of a solar cycle provide valuable data for exploration mission planning and for the determination of the radiation load received due to the GCR environment. The RAMIS (Radiation Measurement in Space) instrument onboard the DLR Eu:CROPIS satellite, named after its primary payload: Euglena and Combined Regenerative Organic-Food Production in Space, has been measuring the radiation environment in a sun-synchronous polar orbit at 500 km to 600 km altitude since December 2018 and has been providing data on the exposure from GCR, inner and outer radiation belt particles and during numerous solar energetic particle events. Measurements at high latitudes and low geomagnetic shielding provide information on the exposure outside the magnetosphere in near-Earth interplanetary space.

Space radiation is a notable hazard for long-duration human spaceflight1. Associated risks include cancer, cataracts, degenerative diseases2 and tissue reactions from large, acute exposures3. Space radiation originates from diverse sources, including galactic cosmic rays4, trapped-particle (Van Allen) belts5 and solar-particle events6. Previous radiation data are from the International Space Station and the Space Shuttle in low-Earth orbit protected by heavy shielding and Earth's magnetic field7,8 and lightly shielded interplanetary robotic probes such as Mars Science Laboratory and Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter9,10. Limited data from the Apollo missions11-13 and ground measurements with substantial caveats are also available14. Here we report radiation measurements from the heavily shielded Orion spacecraft on the uncrewed Artemis I lunar mission. At differing shielding locations inside the vehicle, a fourfold difference in dose rates was observed during proton-belt passes that are similar to large, reference solar-particle events. Interplanetary cosmic-ray dose equivalent rates in Orion were as much as 60% lower than previous observations9. Furthermore, a change in orientation of the spacecraft during the proton-belt transit resulted in a reduction of radiation dose rates of around 50%. These measurements validate the Orion for future crewed exploration and inform future human spaceflight mission design.

Two DOSimetry TELescopes (DOSTELs) have been measuring the radiation environment in the Columbus module of the International Space Station (ISS) since 2009 in the frame of the DOSIS and DOSIS 3D projects. Both instruments have measured the charged particle flux rate and dose rates in a telescope geometry of two planar silicon detectors. The radiation environment in the ISS orbit is mostly composed by galactic cosmic radiation (GCR) and its secondary radiation and protons from the inner radiation belt in the South Atlantic Anomaly (SAA) with sporadic contributions of solar energetic particles at high latitudes. The data presented in this work cover two solar activity minima and corresponding GCR intensity maxima in 2009 and 2020 and the solar activity maximum and corresponding GCR intensity minimum in 2014/2015. Average dose rates measured in the Columbus laboratory in the ISS orbit from GCR and SAA are presented separately. The data is analyzed with respect to the effective magnetic shielding and grouped into different cut-off rigidity intervals. Using only measurements in magnetically unshielded regions at low cut-off rigidity and applying a factor for the geometrical shielding of the Earth, absorbed dose rates and dose equivalent rates in near-Earth interplanetary space are estimated for the years 2009 to 2022.

Purpose: To evaluate the radiation protection offered by an exoskeleton-based radiation protection system (Stemrad MD) and to compare it with that offered by conventional lead aprons. Methods: The experimental setup involved 2 anthropomorphic phantoms, an operator, a patient, and a C-arm as the x-ray radiation source. Thermoluminescent detectors were used to measure radiation doses to different radiosensitive body parts on the operator phantom both with the exoskeleton and a conventional lead apron at the left radial and right femoral positions. Detected radiation doses for the exoskeleton and lead apron for different body parts and positions were compared. Results: At the left radial position, the mean radiation dose (mGy) reduction by the exoskeleton compared with that by the lead apron was >90% for the left eye lens (0.22 & PLUSMN; 0.13 vs 5.18 & PLUSMN; 0.08; P < .0001), right eye lens (0.23 & PLUSMN; 0.13 vs 4.98 & PLUSMN; 0.10; P < .0001), left head (0.11 & PLUSMN; 0.16 vs 3.53 & PLUSMN; 0.07; P < .0001), right head (0.27 & PLUSMN; 0.09 vs 3.12 & PLUSMN; 0.10; P < .0001), and left brain (0.04 & PLUSMN; 0.08 vs 0.46 & PLUSMN; 0.07; P < .0001). At the right femoral position, radiation reduction was >90% for the left eye lens (0.14 & PLUSMN; 0.10 vs 4.16 & PLUSMN; 0.09; P < .0001), right eye lens (0.06 & PLUSMN; 0.08 vs 1.90 & PLUSMN; 0.11; P < .0001), left head (0.10 & PLUSMN; 0.08 vs 4.39 & PLUSMN; 0.08; P < .0001), left brain (0.03 & PLUSMN; 0.07 vs 1.44 & PLUSMN; 0.08; P < .0001), right brain (0.00 & PLUSMN; 0.14 vs 0.11 & PLUSMN; 0.13; P = .06), and thyroid (0.04 & PLUSMN; 0.07 vs 0.27 & PLUSMN; 0.09; P < .0001). Protection of the torso was equivalent to that offered by conventional lead aprons. Conclusions: The exoskeleton-based system provided superior radiation protection to the physician compared with that provided by conventional lead aprons. The effects are particularly impactful for the brain, eye lens, and head areas.

The RadMap Telescope is a new radiation-monitoring instrument operating in the U.S. Orbital Segment of the International Space Station (ISS). The instrument was commissioned in May 2023 and will rotate through four locations inside American, European, and Japanese modules over a period of about six months. In some locations, it will take data alongside operational, validated detectors for a cross-check of measurements. RadMap's central detector is a finely segmented tracking calorimeter that records detailed depth-dose data relevant to studies of the radiation exposure of the ISS crew. It is also able to record particle-dependent energy spectra of cosmic-ray nuclei with energies up to several hundred MeV per nucleon. A unique feature of the detector is its ability to track nuclei with omnidirectional sensitivity at an angular resolution of two degrees. In this contribution, we present the design and capabilities of the RadMap Telescope and give an overview of the instrument's commissioning on the ISS.

Remarkably, we know more about the radiation environment onboard the International Space Station than we do about radiation values at altitudes between 30-40 km in the middle stratosphere. Within t...

Radiation of ionizing or non-ionizing nature has harmful effects on cellular components like DNA as radiation can compromise its proper integrity. To cope with damages caused by external stimuli including radiation, within living cells, several fast and efficient repair mechanisms have evolved. Previous studies addressing organismic radiation tolerance have shown that radiotolerance is a predominant property among extremophilic microorganisms including (hyper-) thermophilic archaea. The analysis of the ionizing radiation tolerance of the chemolithoautotrophic, obligate anaerobic, hyperthermophilic Crenarchaeon Ignicoccus hospitalis showed a D10-value of 4.7 kGy, fourfold exceeding the doses previously determined for other extremophilic archaea. The genome integrity of I. hospitalis after γ-ray exposure in relation to its survival was visualized by RAPD and qPCR. Furthermore, the discrimination between reproduction, and ongoing metabolic activity was possible for the first time indicating that a potential viable but non-culturable (VBNC) state may also account for I. hospitalis.

NASA’s Human Research Program has organized and summarized five classifications of hazards for long duration human exploration missions beyond Low Earth Orbit (LEO). These five hazards are 1) radiation, 2) isolation, 3) distance, 4) gravity fields and 5) the hostile/close environment inside the spacecraft. Leaving LEO and traveling in free space will expose the astronauts to a much harsher radiation environment than currently on board the International Space Station (ISS). The relevant radiation risks for these upcoming exploration missions, to the Moon, near Earth Asteroids and in the end to Mars need to be identified and dealt with to enable safe and secure human exploration. Within this context Orion, being NASA´s next generation spacecraft designed for human exploration of the solar systems will be the home of the next generation of astronauts. The upcoming Orion Exploration Mission 1 (EM-1), being an unmanned test flight scheduled for 2020 venturing beyond LEO and into cislunar space offers the unique opportunity to house a variety of secondary research payloads to tackle the problem of radiation and radiation protection. One of these payloads is the Matroshka AstroRad Radiation Experiment (MARE), a science payload proposed by the German Aerospace Center (DLR) and the Israel Space Agency (ISA) and approved by NASA and manifested for flight aboard EM-1 in 2017. MARE will consist of two anthropomorphic female phantoms (torsos), named Helga and Zohar, located inside the Orion cabin at seat positions 3 and 4. Each of the phantoms will be equipped with a variety of active and passive radiation detectors to determine the skin and organ doses during this first flight beyond LEO since almost 50 years. In addition one of the phantoms (Zohar) will be equipped with a novel radiation protection vest (AstroRad) developed in cooperation between StemRad Ltd, Israel and Lockheed Martin. An ergonomic evaluation of AstroRad is planned onboard ISS as early as 2019. With this flight configuration Helga will act as the reference phantom while the protection properties of the AstroRad vest will be tested with Zohar. MARE is designed to provide a comprehensive picture of the radiation environment beyond Earth orbit specific to the Orion vehicle and internal to human body analogs. This data set will inform about expected exposures, enable better planning by validating the operational toolsets used to predict crew radiation exposure risk on future Orion missions, and evaluate a potential countermeasure. MARE leverages the expertise and international collaboration heritage of the ISS Matroshka experiments, and expands it further by adding the mitigation component of the AstroRad shield. MARE represents a demonstration of science research opportunities aboard NASA’s next generation space exploration vehicle. The presentation will provide an overview of the current status of the experiment hardware design, presenting the first data on the special developed new active radiation detectors included in MARE and provide insights in the international team working together to ensure safe human travels for exploration missions.

Some microarray-based instruments that use bioaffinity receptors such as antibodies or aptamers are under development to detect signatures of past or present life on planetary bodies. Studying the resistance of such instruments against space constraints and cosmic rays in particular is a prerequisite. We used several ground-based facilities to study the resistance of aptamers to various types of particles (protons, electrons, neutrons, and carbon ions) at different energies and fluences. We also tested the resistance of aptamers during the EXPOSE-R2 mission outside the International Space Station (ISS). The accumulated dose measured after the 588 days of this mission (220 mGy) corresponds to the accumulated dose that can be expected during a mission to Mars. We found that the recognition ability of fluorescently labeled aptamers was not significantly affected during short-term exposure experiments taking into account only one type of radiation at a time. However, we demonstrated that the same fluorescent dye was significantly affected by temperature variations (-21°C to +58°C) and storage throughout the entirety of the ISS experiment (60% of signal loss). This induced a large variability of aptamer signal in our analysis. However, we found that >50% of aptamers were still functional after the whole EXPOSE-R2 mission. We conclude that aptamer-based instruments are well suited for in situ analysis on planetary bodies, but the detection step requires additional investigations.

In the last few years, the Biophysics Working Group of the Institute of Aerospace Medicine of the German Aerospace Center (DLR) started the development of a small low power consumption radiation detector system for the measurement of the absorbed dose to be applied in various environments, such as onboard aircraft, in space, and also as a demonstration tool for students. These so called DLR M-42 detectors are based on an electronics design, which can easily be adjusted to the user- and mission-requirements. M-42 systems were already applied for measurements in airplanes, during two MAPHEUS (Materialphysikalische Experimente unter Schwerelosigkeit) rocket missions, and are currently prepared for long term balloon experiments. In addition, they will be part of the dosimetry suite of the upcoming Matroshka AstroRad Radiation Experiment on the NASA Artemis I mission. This paper gives an overview of the design and the testing of the DLR M-42 systems and provides highlighted results from the MAPHEUS campaigns where the detectors were tested for the first time under space flight conditions. Results clearly show that the system design enables independent measurements starting upon rocket launch due to the built-in accelerometer sensors and provides data for the relevant 6 min of μ-gravity as given for the MAPHEUS missions. These 6 min of the μ-gravity environment at altitudes between 100 and 240 km lead to a total absorbed dose of 1.21 ± 0.15 µGy being equivalent to half a day of radiation background measured with the M-42 in the laboratory at DLR, Cologne, Germany.

Presentation Outline: Orion Multipurpose Crew Vehicle (MPCV); Radiation Vest for Astronauts - AstroRad; ISS (International Space Station) Matroshka; Matroshka AstroRad Radiation Experiment (MARE) on Exploration Mission 1 (EM-1).

The natural radiation environment in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) differs significantly in composition and energy from that found on Earth. The space radiation field consists of high energetic protons and heavier ions from Galactic Cosmic Radiation (GCR), as well as of protons and electrons trapped in the Earth’s radiation belts (Van Allen belts). Protons and some heavier particles ejected in occasional Solar Particle Events (SPEs) might in addition contribute to the radiation exposure in LEO. All sources of radiation are modulated by the solar cycle. During solar maximum conditions SPEs occur more frequently with higher particle intensities. Since the radiation exposure in LEO exceeds exposure limits for radiation workers on Earth, the radiation exposure in space has been recognized as a main health concern for humans in space missions from the beginning of the space age on. Monitoring of the radiation environment is therefore an inevitable task in human spaceflight. Since mission profiles are always different and each spacecraft provides different shielding distributions, modifying the radiation environment measurements needs to be done for each mission. The experiments “Dose Distribution within the ISS (DOSIS)” (2009–2011) and “Dose Distribution within the ISS 3D (DOSIS 3D)” (2012–onwards) onboard the Columbus Laboratory of the International Space Station (ISS) use a detector suite consisting of two silicon detector telescopes (DOSimetry TELescope = DOSTEL) and passive radiation detector packages (PDP) and are designed for the determination of the temporal and spatial variation of the radiation environment. With the DOSTEL instruments’ changes of the radiation composition and the related exposure levels in dependence of the solar cycle, the altitude of the ISS and the influence of attitude changes of the ISS during Space Shuttle dockings inside the Columbus Laboratory have been monitored. The absorbed doses measured at the end of May 2016 reached up to 286 μGy/day with dose equivalent values of 647 μSv/day.

The charged particle community is looking for techniques exploiting proton interactions instead of X-ray absorption for creating images of human tissue. Due to multiple Coulomb scattering inside the measured object it has shown to be highly non-trivial to achieve sufficient spatial resolution. We present imaging of biological tissue with a proton microscope. This device relies on magnetic optics, distinguishing it from most published proton imaging methods. For these methods reducing the data acquisition time to a clinically acceptable level has turned out to be challenging. In a proton microscope, data acquisition and processing are much simpler. This device even allows imaging in real time. The primary medical application will be image guidance in proton radiosurgery. Proton images demonstrating the potential for this application are presented. Tomographic reconstructions are included to raise awareness of the possibility of high-resolution proton tomography using magneto-optics.

The radiation environment encountered in space differs in nature from that on Earth, consisting mostly of highly energetic ions from protons up to iron, resulting in radiation levels far exceeding the ones present on Earth for occupational radiation workers. Since the beginning of the space era, the radiation exposure during space missions has been monitored with various active and passive radiation instruments. Also onboard the International Space Station (ISS), a number of area monitoring devices provide data related to the spatial and temporal variation of the radiation field in and outside the ISS. The aim of the DOSIS (2009–2011) and the DOSIS 3D (2012–ongoing) experiments was and is to measure the radiation environment within the European Columbus Laboratory of the ISS. These measurements are, on the one hand, performed with passive radiation detectors mounted at 11 locations within Columbus for the determination of the spatial distribution of the radiation field parameters and, on the other, with two active radiation detectors mounted at a fixed position inside Columbus for the determination of the temporal variation of the radiation field parameters. Data measured with passive radiation detectors showed that the absorbed dose values inside the Columbus Laboratory follow a pattern, based on the local shielding configuration of the radiation detectors, with minimum dose values observed in the year 2010 of 195–270 μGy/day and maximum values observed in the year 2012 with values ranging from 260 to 360 μGy/day. The absorbed dose is modulated by (a) the variation in solar activity and (b) the changes in ISS altitude.

One factor contributing to the high uncertainty in radiation risk assessment for long-term space missions is the insufficient knowledge about possible interactions of radiation with other spaceflight environmental factors. Such factors, e.g. microgravity, have to be considered as possibly additive or even synergistic factors in cancerogenesis. Regarding the effects of microgravity on signal transduction, it cannot be excluded that microgravity alters the cellular response to cosmic radiation, which comprises a complex network of signaling pathways. The purpose of the experiment "Cellular Responses to Radiation in Space" (CellRad, formerly CERASP) is to study the effects of combined exposure to microgravity, radiation and general space flight conditions on mammalian cells, in particular Human Embryonic Kidney (HEK) cells that are stably transfected with different plasmids allowing monitoring of proliferation and the Nuclear Factor κB (NF-κB) pathway by means of fluorescent proteins. The cells will be seeded on ground in multiwell plate units (MPUs), transported to the ISS, and irradiated by an artificial radiation source after an adaptation period at 0 × g and 1 × g. After different incubation periods, the cells will be fixed by pumping a formaldehyde solution into the MPUs. Ground control samples will be treated in the same way. For implementation of CellRad in the Biolab on the International Space Station (ISS), tests of the hardware and the biological systems were performed. The sequence of different steps in MPU fabrication (cutting, drilling, cleaning, growth surface coating, and sterilization) was optimized in order to reach full biocompatibility. Different coatings of the foil used as growth surface revealed that coating with 0.1 mg/ml poly-D-lysine supports cell attachment better than collagen type I. The tests of prototype hardware (Science Model) proved its full functionality for automated medium change, irradiation and fixation of cells. Exposure of HEK cells to the β-rays emitted by the radiation source dose-dependently decreased cell growth and increased NF-κB activation. The signal of the fluorescent proteins after formaldehyde fixation was stable for at least six months after fixation, allowing storage of the MPUs after fixation for several months before the transport back to Earth and evaluation of the fluorescence intensity. In conclusion, these tests show the feasibility of CellRad on the ISS with the currently available transport mechanisms.