The radiation environment on the surface of Mars - Summary of model calculations and comparison to RAD data

Daniel Matthiä; Donald M Hassler; Wouter de Wet; Bent Ehresmann; Ana Firan; John Flores-McLaughlin; Jingnan Guo; Lawrence H Heilbronn; Kerry Lee; Hunter Ratliff; Ryan R Rios; Tony C Slaba; Michael Smith; Nicholas N Stoffle; Lawrence W Townsend; Thomas Berger; Günther Reitz; Robert F Wimmer-Schweingruber; Cary Zeitlin

doi:10.1016/j.lssr.2017.06.003

The radiation environment on the surface of Mars - Summary of model calculations and comparison to RAD data

Life Sci Space Res (Amst). 2017 Aug:14:18-28. doi: 10.1016/j.lssr.2017.06.003. Epub 2017 Jun 28.

Authors

Daniel Matthiä¹, Donald M Hassler², Wouter de Wet³, Bent Ehresmann⁴, Ana Firan⁵, John Flores-McLaughlin⁶, Jingnan Guo⁷, Lawrence H Heilbronn³, Kerry Lee⁸, Hunter Ratliff³, Ryan R Rios⁵, Tony C Slaba⁹, Michael Smith³, Nicholas N Stoffle¹⁰, Lawrence W Townsend³, Thomas Berger¹¹, Günther Reitz¹¹, Robert F Wimmer-Schweingruber⁷, Cary Zeitlin¹²

Affiliations

¹ German Aerospace Center, Institute of Aerospace Medicine, Linder Höhe, 51147, Cologne, Germany. Electronic address: daniel.matthiae@dlr.de.
² Southwest Research Institute, Space Science and Engineering Division, Boulder, USA; Institut d'Astrophysique Spatiale, CNRS, Orsay, France.
³ Department of Nuclear Engineering, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee, USA.
⁴ Southwest Research Institute, Space Science and Engineering Division, Boulder, USA.
⁵ Space Radiation Analysis Group, NASA Johnson Space Center, Houston, TX, USA; Leidos Exploration and Mission Support, Houston, TX, 77258, USA.
⁶ Space Radiation Analysis Group, NASA Johnson Space Center, Houston, TX, USA; University of Houston, Houston, TX, USA.
⁷ Institute of Experimental and Applied Physics, Christian-Albrechts-University, Kiel, Germany.
⁸ Space Radiation Analysis Group, NASA Johnson Space Center, Houston, TX, USA.
⁹ NASA Langley Research Center, 2 West Reid St., MS 188E, Hampton, VA, 23681, USA.
¹⁰ Leidos Exploration and Mission Support, Houston, TX, 77258, USA.
¹¹ German Aerospace Center, Institute of Aerospace Medicine, Linder Höhe, 51147, Cologne, Germany.
¹² Department of Nuclear Engineering, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee, USA; Leidos Exploration and Mission Support, Houston, TX, 77258, USA.

PMID: 28887939
DOI: 10.1016/j.lssr.2017.06.003

Abstract

The radiation environment at the Martian surface is, apart from occasional solar energetic particle events, dominated by galactic cosmic radiation, secondary particles produced in their interaction with the Martian atmosphere and albedo particles from the Martian regolith. The highly energetic primary cosmic radiation consists mainly of fully ionized nuclei creating a complex radiation field at the Martian surface. This complex field, its formation and its potential health risk posed to astronauts on future manned missions to Mars can only be fully understood using a combination of measurements and model calculations. In this work the outcome of a workshop held in June 2016 in Boulder, CO, USA is presented: experimental results from the Radiation Assessment Detector of the Mars Science Laboratory are compared to model results from GEANT4, HETC-HEDS, HZETRN, MCNP6, and PHITS. Charged and neutral particle spectra and dose rates measured between 15 November 2015 and 15 January 2016 and model results calculated for this time period are investigated.

Keywords: Galactic cosmic radiation; Mars; Modeling; Particle flux; Radiation exposure.

MeSH terms

Astronauts
Cosmic Radiation*
Extraterrestrial Environment*
Gamma Rays
Humans
Mars*
Models, Theoretical*
Neutrons
Radiation Exposure / analysis*
Radiation Monitoring / methods*
Radiation Protection