Predicting radiation risk

European scientists have developed software for predicting the doses of radiation that astronauts will receive aboard the orbiting European laboratory module Columbus, which was recently attached to the International Space Station (ISS).

The new software accurately simulates the physics of radiation particles passing through spacecraft walls and then through a human body.

To predict the radiation risk faced by astronauts, engineers must tackle three separate problems: how much radiation is hitting the space vehicle, how much of that radiation is blocked by the available shielding, and what are the biological effects of the radiation on the astronauts?

The new software, funded by the Eurpean Space Agency (ESA)’s General Studies Programme and the Swedish National Space Board, concentrates on the second of those questions.

The software simulation itself - dubbed Dose Estimation by Simulation of the International Space Station (ISS) Radiation Environment (DESIRE) - was developed by Tore Ersmark of the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Stockholm, Sweden.