Relativistic electron fluxes and dose rate variations observed on the international space station

The paper presents observations of relativistic electron precipitations (REP) on the International Space Station (ISS) obtained by three Bulgarian-built instruments flown in 2001 and 2008–2010. The first data are from the Liulin-E094 instrument flown in May–August 2001 inside the US laboratory module of the ISS. Next the time profiles of the REP-generated daily fluences and the absorbed doses at the orbit of ISS during the period February 2008–August 2010 are analyzed in dependence of the daily Ap index and compared with the daily relativistic electron fluence with energies of more than 2 MeV measured by the GOES. The REP in April 2010 being the second largest in GOES history (with a >2 MeV electron fluence event) is specially studied

“BION-M” No. 1 spacecraft radiation environment as observed by the RD3-B3 radiometer-dosimeter in April–May 2013

Space radiation has been monitored using the РД3-Б3 (in the following we use the Latin transcription RD3-B3) spectrometer–dosimeter on board a recent space flight of the Russian recoverable satellite “BION-M” No. 1. The instrument was mounted inside the satellite in a pressurized volume together with biological objects and samples. The RD3-B3 instrument is a battery operated version of the spare model of the R3D-B3 instrument developed and built for the ESA BIOPAN-6 facility on Foton M3 satellite launched on September 2007 (Häder et al., 2009). It is a low mass, small dimension automated device that measures solar radiation in four channels and ionizing radiation in 256 channels of a Liulin-type energy deposition spectrometer (Dachev et al., 2002). Cosmic ionizing radiation has been monitored and separated in 256 deposited energy spectra, which were further used for determination of the absorbed dose rate and flux. The paper summarizes the results for the Earth radiation environment at the altitude of 253–585 km

Space Shuttle drops down the SAA doses on ISS

Long-term analysis of data from two radiation detection instruments on the International Space Station (ISS) shows that the docking of the Space Shuttle drops down the measured dose rates in the region of the South Atlantic Anomaly (SAA) by a factor of 1.5–3. Measurements either by the R3DE detector, which is outside the ISS at the EuTEF facility on the Columbus module behind a shielding of less than 0.45 g cm-², and by the three detectors of the Liulin-5 particle telescope, which is inside the Russian PEARS module in the spherical tissue equivalent phantom behind much heavier shielding demonstrate that effect. Simultaneously the estimated averaged incident energies of the incoming protons rise up from about 30 to 45 MeV. The effect is explained by the additional shielding against the SAA 30–150 MeV protons, provided by the 78 tons Shuttle to the instruments inside and outside of the ISS. An additional reason is the ISS attitude change (performed for the Shuttle docking) leading to decreasing of dose rates in two of Liulin-5 detectors because of the East–West proton fluxes asymmetry in SAA. The Galactic Cosmic Rays dose rates are practically not affected

Overview of the Liulin type instruments for space radiation measurement and their scientific results

Ionizing radiation is recognized to be one of the main health concerns for humans in the space radiation environment. Estimation of space radiation effects on health requires theaccurate knowledge of the accumulated absorbed dose, which depends on the global space radiation distribution, solar cycle and local shielding generated by the 3D mass distribution of the space vehicle. This paper presents an overview of the spectrometer–dosimeters of the Liulin type, which were developed in the late 1980s and have been in use since then. Two major measurement systems have been developed by our team. The first one is based on one silicon detector and is known as a Liulin-type deposited energy spectrometer(DES) (Dachev et al., 2002, 2003), while the second one is a dosimetric telescope (DT) with two or three silicon detectors. The Liulin-type instruments were calibrated using a number of radioactive sources and particle accelerators. The main results of the calibrations are presented in the paper. In the last section of the paper some of the most significant scientific results obtained in space and on aircraft, balloon and rocket flights since 1989 are presented