Radiation engineering analysis of shielding materials to assess their ability to protect astronauts in deep space from energetic particle radiation

An analysis is performed on four typical materials (aluminum, liquid hydrogen, polyethylene, and water) to assess their impact on the length of time an astronaut can stay in deep space and not exceed a design basis radiation exposure of 150 mSv. A large number of heavy lift launches of pure shielding mass are needed to enable long duration, deep space missions to keep astronauts at or below the exposure value with shielding provided by the vehicle. Therefore, vehicle mass using the assumptions in the paper cannot be the sole shielding mechanism for long duration, deep space missions. As an example, to enable the Mars Design Reference Mission 5.0 with a 400 day transit to and from Mars, not including the 500 day stay on the surface, a minimum of 24 heavy lift launches of polyethylene at 89,375 lbm (40.54 tonnes) each are needed for the 1977 galactic cosmic ray environment. With the assumptions used in this paper, a single heavy lift launch of water or polyethylene can protect astronauts for a 130 day mission before exceeding the exposure value. Liquid hydrogen can only protect the astronauts for 160 days. Even a single launch of pure shielding material cannot protect an astronaut in deep space for more than 180 days using the assumptions adopted in the analysis. It is shown that liquid hydrogen is not the best shielding material for the same mass as polyethylene for missions that last longer than 225 days.     

The perfect boring situation—Addressing the experience of monotony during crewed deep space missions through habitability design

In contemporary orbital missions, workloads are so high and varied that crew may rarely experience stretches of monotony. However, in historical long duration missions, occurrences of monotony were, indeed, reported anecdotally by crew. Of the effective countermeasures that appear to be at hand, many rely on visual or logistical proximity to the Earth, and are not feasible in the remote context of an extended deep space mission scenario. There, particularly in- and outbound cruising stages would be characterised by longer, comparably uneventful periods of low workload, coupled with confinement and unchanging vehicle surroundings.     

基于地面任务-空间姿态映射的敏捷卫星任务规划

面向观测时间窗口相互重叠的多点目标观测任务需求,对敏捷卫星单星单轨任务规划问题进行研究。针对传统方法在卫星机动能力受限和成像任务冗余两种情况下求解效率低的缺陷,引入任务-姿态协同规划思想。首先,建立地面任务和空间姿态映射关系,并考虑相邻任务间姿态机动时间的最优性使得卫星在观测相邻任务时无多余等待时间,以此来设计任务-姿态协同规划数学模型。其次,根据任务-姿态协同规划数学模型,设计自适应伪谱遗传算法（APGA）,用以求解满足调整时间最优性的敏捷卫星任务规划问题。最后,通过仿真实验,验证了模型和算法能够有效地解决传统算法求解敏捷卫星任务规划问题时存在的求解效率低的缺陷。     

A model of foreground emission in UV using GALEX deep observations

Foreground emission, mainly airglow and zodiacal light, is a significant contributor in an ultraviolet observation especially from low earth orbit. Its careful estimation and removal are tedious yet unavoidable processes in the study of diffuse UV radiation and by extension interstellar dust studies. Our analysis of deep GALEX observations show that airglow is not only a function of Sun angle but also a strong function of Solar activity at the time of observation. We present here an empirical model of airglow emission, derived from GALEX deep observations, as a function of 10.7 cm Solar flux and Sun angle. We obtained the model by training machine learning models on the data using a variant of the regression algorithm that is both resilient toward outlier data and sensitive to the complexities of the provided data. Our model predictions across various observations show no loss in generalization as well as good agreement with the observed values. We find that the total airglow in an observation is the sum of a baseline part (AG_c) that depends on the Solar flux and Sun angle, and a variable part (AG_v) that depends on the Sun angle and the time of observation with respect to local midnight. We also find that the total airglow can vary between 85 – 390 photon units in FUV and 80 – 465 photon units in NUV.     

Design and application of solar sailing: A review on key technologies

Solar sail technology has been proposed and developed for space explorations with advantages of low launch cost, no-propellant consumption, and continuous thrust, which has great potentials in earth polar detection, interstellar explorations and etc. The development of solar sail has made significant progress in structural design, manufacturing, materials, orbit transfer, and stability control in the past few decades, which makes meaningful contributions to astronomy, physics, and aerospace science. Technological breakthroughs of Solar Radiation Pressure (SRP) propulsion and interstellar transfer have been achieved in current solar sail missions. However, there are still many challenges and problems need to be solved. This paper attempts to summarize the research schemes and potential applications of solar sailing in space missions from the viewpoint of key technologies, so as to provide an overall perspective for researchers in this field. Analyses of the key technologies of solar sailing system design are provided. Finally, challenges and prospective development of solar sailing are discussed.