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L. W. Townsend

Publications and source records attributed to L. W. Townsend.

3 records
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Maps of Primary Radiatoin Dose Around the Lunar South Pole: Preliminary Assessment of Artemis Landing Sites

The Moon has a harsh radiation environment that poses significant challenges to future science and exploration activities. Exposure hazards from space radiation are primarily due to galactic cosmic rays (GCRs) and solar energetic particles (SEPs) that are incident at the lunar surface from all directions. The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter’s (LRO) Cosmic Ray Telescope for Effects of Radiation (CRaTER) instrument has been observing space radiation around the Moon since 2009. The CRaTER observations show a steady GCR flux with intermittent SEP events that have much higher fluxes. During solar minimum, the GCR flux is higher, while the SEP events are less common. On the other hand, during solar maximum, the SEP events have are more frequent and the GCR flux is lower. This is due to variations in solar activity. GCRs have characteristic energies spanning from 1 MeV to 10s of GeV. SEPs, however, have much lower energy ranges of 50 keV to 100s of MeV.

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