EUROPEAN researchers have developed a ground-breaking real-time wearable personal radiation monitor for use in space.
In space, astronauts are exposed to many dangers, including radiation exposure. Previous approaches to radiation monitor could only reveal the amount of radiation the astronauts had been exposed to after their return to earth.
With this new active and wearable device, astronauts can instantly be alerted to increased and dangerous radiation levels, providing them the time to protect themselves while on critical space missions. The monitor was recently tested on the International Space Station, and will be placed there permanently in June 2016.
The personal radiation dosimeter system is the result of a European Space Agency-sponsored collaborative project to create personal active dosimeters, with contributions from Tyndall National Institute in Cork, the German Aerospace Centre (DLR, project co-ordinator), RADOS/Mirion of Finland, Seibersdorf Laboratories of Austria, and PTB of Germany.
The device is made up of two parts: a phone-sized Mobile Unit is worn in a pouch on the astronaut's body, while a Personal Storage Device remains on board the vessel, where it serves as a docking station to recharge the Mobile Unit, download data and transmit it back to Earth.
During the recent tests on board the International Space Station, the Mobile Unit actively monitored radiation during its launch into space on board the Soyuz spacecraft.
A small team at Cork's Tyndall National Institute led by Dr. Jaksic, in close co-operation with the institute’s semiconductor fabrication plant, developed, fabricated and supplied three of the four different types of radiation sensors that make up the Mobile Unit part of the device.
Each sensor covers a different type or spectrum of radiation to give a comprehensive picture of the radiation environment in space, which is more complex and harder to measure than that on Earth.
“The project needed very specialised sensors, and we supplied three out of the four sensors that went into the finished unit," explained Dr. Jaksic.
Dr. Jaksic anticipates that a successful deployment of the device will lead to further improvements: the device may be made smaller, to be worn like a wristwatch, or add more sensitive detectors in the future.