Radiation Exposure and Shielding Effects on the Lunar Surface

Abstract The Moon will be a primary target for human space exploration in the near future. A limiting factor for a crewed mission to the Moon is the radiation dose during their stay on the lunar surface. While the total dose is expected to be dominated by the galactic cosmic radiation (GCR), the pot...

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Main Authors: Daniel Matthiä, Thomas Berger
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Wiley 2024-12-01
Series:Space Weather
Subjects:
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1029/2024SW004095
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author Daniel Matthiä
Thomas Berger
author_facet Daniel Matthiä
Thomas Berger
author_sort Daniel Matthiä
collection DOAJ
description Abstract The Moon will be a primary target for human space exploration in the near future. A limiting factor for a crewed mission to the Moon is the radiation dose during their stay on the lunar surface. While the total dose is expected to be dominated by the galactic cosmic radiation (GCR), the potential occurrence of large solar energetic particle events may lead to severe short‐term effects and endanger the success of the mission. This work investigated the expected dose rates for maximum GCR intensity and the total dose from several historical solar energetic particle events, including the NASA reference event, through the application of numerical simulations with the Geant4 Monte‐Carlo framework. An evaluation of the shielding effect of lunar regolith was carried out. For the solar particle events a shielding of more than 4 g/cm2 of regolith would reduce the expected dose to below the current 30‐day limits and a shielding of more than 10 g/cm2 would result in a safety margin factor of two. For GCR adding additional mass shielding did not reduce the absorbed dose significantly. The estimated total dose equivalent received utilizing around 180 g/cm2 of regolith amounted to 200 mSv/year, which is only about 25% below the corresponding estimates for an unshielded environment. The comparison to model and experimental data from literature showed reasonable agreement to measurements but the analysis of various earlier model results revealed, that substantial differences between the models exist, despite all improvements that have been achieved in recent years.
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spelling doaj-art-cb17bee1e9164219aa745dd362562d382025-02-01T08:10:32ZengWileySpace Weather1542-73902024-12-012212n/an/a10.1029/2024SW004095Radiation Exposure and Shielding Effects on the Lunar SurfaceDaniel Matthiä0Thomas Berger1German Aerospace Center (DLR) Institute of Aerospace Medicine Cologne GermanyGerman Aerospace Center (DLR) Institute of Aerospace Medicine Cologne GermanyAbstract The Moon will be a primary target for human space exploration in the near future. A limiting factor for a crewed mission to the Moon is the radiation dose during their stay on the lunar surface. While the total dose is expected to be dominated by the galactic cosmic radiation (GCR), the potential occurrence of large solar energetic particle events may lead to severe short‐term effects and endanger the success of the mission. This work investigated the expected dose rates for maximum GCR intensity and the total dose from several historical solar energetic particle events, including the NASA reference event, through the application of numerical simulations with the Geant4 Monte‐Carlo framework. An evaluation of the shielding effect of lunar regolith was carried out. For the solar particle events a shielding of more than 4 g/cm2 of regolith would reduce the expected dose to below the current 30‐day limits and a shielding of more than 10 g/cm2 would result in a safety margin factor of two. For GCR adding additional mass shielding did not reduce the absorbed dose significantly. The estimated total dose equivalent received utilizing around 180 g/cm2 of regolith amounted to 200 mSv/year, which is only about 25% below the corresponding estimates for an unshielded environment. The comparison to model and experimental data from literature showed reasonable agreement to measurements but the analysis of various earlier model results revealed, that substantial differences between the models exist, despite all improvements that have been achieved in recent years.https://doi.org/10.1029/2024SW004095galactic cosmic radiationsolar energetic particlessolar particle eventradiation exposuremoonregolith
spellingShingle Daniel Matthiä
Thomas Berger
Radiation Exposure and Shielding Effects on the Lunar Surface
Space Weather
galactic cosmic radiation
solar energetic particles
solar particle event
radiation exposure
moon
regolith
title Radiation Exposure and Shielding Effects on the Lunar Surface
title_full Radiation Exposure and Shielding Effects on the Lunar Surface
title_fullStr Radiation Exposure and Shielding Effects on the Lunar Surface
title_full_unstemmed Radiation Exposure and Shielding Effects on the Lunar Surface
title_short Radiation Exposure and Shielding Effects on the Lunar Surface
title_sort radiation exposure and shielding effects on the lunar surface
topic galactic cosmic radiation
solar energetic particles
solar particle event
radiation exposure
moon
regolith
url https://doi.org/10.1029/2024SW004095
work_keys_str_mv AT danielmatthia radiationexposureandshieldingeffectsonthelunarsurface
AT thomasberger radiationexposureandshieldingeffectsonthelunarsurface