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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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At least 415 records · Page 23
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS1993

The role of global cloud climatologies in validating numerical models

The purpose of this work is to estimate sampling errors of area-time averaged rain rate due to temporal samplings by satellites. In particular, the sampling errors of the proposed low inclination orbit satellite of the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) (35 deg inclination and 350 km altitude), one of the sun synchronous polar orbiting satellites of NOAA series (98.89 deg inclination and 833 km altitude), and two simultaneous sun synchronous polar orbiting satellites--assumed to carry a perfect passive microwave sensor for direct rainfall measurements--will be estimated. This estimate is done by performing a study of the satellite orbits and the autocovariance function of the area-averaged rain rate time series. A model based on an exponential fit of the autocovariance function is used for actual calculations. Varying visiting intervals and total coverage of averaging area on each visit by the satellites are taken into account in the model. The data are generated by a General Circulation Model (GCM). The model has a diurnal cycle and parameterized convective processes. A special run of the GCM was made at NASA/GSFC in which the rainfall and precipitable water fields were retained globally for every hour of the run for the whole year.

HARSHVARDHAN↗
NASA NTRS1993

On the magnetic and velocity field geometry of simple sunspots

It is presently shown that a simple sunspot model with azimuthal variations in inclination, but lacking azimuthal field-strength variations, is free from azimuthal Lorentz forces. The meridional currents arising from the inclination variations are parallel to the field lines, suggesting that a cylindrically symmetric magnetostatic sunspot model can be perturbed into one with azimuthal variations in inclination with adjustment of the meridional force balance.

Title, Alan M.↗
NASA NTRS1994

Aerodynamic characteristics of a propeller-powered high-lift semispan wing

A small-scale semispan high-lift wing-flap system equipped under the wing with a turboprop engine assembly was tested in the LaRC 14- by 22-Foot Subsonic Tunnel. Experimental data were obtained for various propeller rotational speeds, nacelle locations, and nacelle inclinations. To isolate the effects of the high lift system, data were obtained with and without the flaps and leading-edge device. The effects of the propeller slipstream on the overall longitudinal aerodynamic characteristics of the wing-propeller assembly were examined. Test results indicated that the lift coefficient of the wing could be increased by the propeller slipstream when the rotational speed was increased and high-lift devices were deployed. Decreasing the nacelle inclination (increased pitch down) enhanced the lift performance of the system much more than varying the vertical or horizontal location of the nacelle. Furthermore, decreasing the nacelle inclination led to higher lift curve slope values, which indicated that the powered wing could sustain higher angles of attack near maximum lift performance. Any lift augmentation was accompanied by a drag penalty due to the increased wing lift.

Gentry, Garl L., Jr.↗
NASA NTRS1994

High Earth orbit design for lunar assisted small Explorer class missions

Small Expendable launch vehicles are capable of injecting modest payloads into high Earth orbits having apogee near the lunar distance. However, lunar and solar perturbations can quickly lower perigee and cause premature reentry. Costly perigee raising maneuvers by the spacecraft are required to maintain the orbit. In addition, the range of inclinations achievable is limited to those of launch sites unless costly spacecraft maneuvers are performed. This study investigates the use of a lunar swingby in a near-Hohmann transfer trajectory to raise perigee into the 8 to 25 solar radius range and reach a wide variety of inclinations without spacecraft maneuvers. It is found that extremely stable orbits can be obtained if the postencounter spacecraft orbital period is one-half of a lunar sidereal revolution and the Earth-vehicle-Moon geometry is within a specified range. Criteria for achieving stable orbits with various perigee heights and ecliptic inclinations are developed, and the sensitivity of the resulting mission orbits to transfer trajectory injection (TTI) errors is examined. It is shown that carefully designed orbits yield lifetimes of several years, with excellent ground station coverage characteristics and minimal eclipses. A phasing loop error correction strategy is considered with the spacecraft propulsion system delta V demand for TTI error correction and a postlunar encounter apogee trim maneuver typically in the 30 to 120 meters per second range.

Mathews, M.↗
NASA NTRS1994

Project Freebird: An orbital transfer vehicle

Freebird is a space-based orbital transfer vehicle designed to repair and deorbit orbital assets. Freebird is based at International Space Station Alpha (ISSA) at an inclination of 51.6 deg and is capable of three types of missions: crewed and teleoperated LEO missions, and extended robotic missions. In a crewed local configuration, the vehicle can visit inclinations between 30.8 deg and 72.4 deg at altitudes close to 390 km. Adding extra fuel tanks extends this range of inclination up to 84.9 deg and down to 18.3 deg. Furthermore, removing the crew module, using the vehicle in a teleoperated manner, and operating with extra fuel tanks allows missions to polar and geosynchronous orbits. To allow for mission flexibility, the vehicle was designed in a semimodular configuration. The major system components include a crew module, a 'smart box' (which contains command, communications, guidance, and navigation equipment), a propulsion pack, extra fuel tanks, and a vehicle storage facility (VSF) for storage purposes. To minimize risk as well as development time and cost, the vehicle was designed using only proven technology or technology which is expected to be flight-qualified in time for the intended launch date of 2002. And, because Freebird carries crew and operates near the space station, it must meet or exceed the NASA reliability standard of 0.994, as well as other standard requirements for such vehicles. The Freebird program was conceived and designed as a way to provide important and currently unavailable satellite repair and replacement services of a value equal to or exceeding operational costs.

Aneses, Carlos A.↗
NASA NTRS1995

Effect of Gravity on the Mammalian Cell Deformation

The effect of human cell immersed in culture liquid under a micro-gravity environment has been investigated. The study is based on the numerical simulation of the configuration of human cell affected by the time dependent variation of gravity acceleration ranging from 10(exp -3) to 2 g(sub o) (g(sub o) = 9.81 m/s(exp 2)) in 15 seconds. Both the free floating cell and the cell contacted to the upper and lower inclined walls imposed by the time-dependent reduced gravity acceleration are considered in this study. The results show that the cell configuration changes from spherical to horizontally elongated ellipsoid for both the free floating cell and the cell sitting on the lower inclined wall while the cell configuration varies from spherical to vertically elongated ellipsoid for the cell hanging to the upper inclined wall when the gravity acceleration increases. Experimental observations, carried out of human cells exposed to the variation of gravity levels, show that the results of experimental observations agree exactly with the theoretical model computation described in this paper. These results sre significant for humans exposed to the micro-gravity environment.

Hung, R. J.↗
NASA NTRS1997

Modeling fluxes resulting from new or Molniya-class objects

The behavior of objects in Molniya-type orbits and debris objects produced in new breakups are considered. As the majority of breakups in highly eccentric orbits occur in Molniya-type orbits, it is of interest whether, and how, debris objects can interfere with the geosynchronous earth orbit and low earth orbit regions. The behavior of such objects are determined principally by the initial argument of perigee and the initial inclination. The closer the initial orbit's argument of perigee is to 270 deg, and the inclination is to the critical inclination of 63.4 deg, the longer the perigee appears to be locked in the southern hemisphere. The impact on the low earth orbit region is illustrated as the interference of debris objects with the International Space Station's orbit. The possible interactions of Molniya-type debris and with the geostationary ring is demonstrated.

Siebold, Karl H.↗
NASA NTRS1958

Three-Dimensional Orbits of Earth Satellites, Including Effects of Earth Oblateness and Atmospheric Rotation

The principal purpose of the present paper is to present sets of equations which may be used for calculating complete trajectories of earth satellites from outer space to the ground under the influence of air drag and gravity, including oblateness effects, and to apply these to several examples of entry trajectories starting from a circular orbit. Equations of motion, based on an "instantaneous ellipse" technique, with polar angle as independent variable, were found suitable for automatic computation of orbits in which the trajectory consists of a number of revolutions. This method is suitable as long as the trajectory does not become nearly vertical. In the terminal phase of the trajectories, which are nearly vertical, equations of motion in spherical polar coordinates with time as the independent variable were found to be more suitable. In the first illustrative example the effects of the oblateness component of the earth's gravitational field and of atmospheric rotation were studied for equatorial orbits. The satellites were launched into circular orbits at a height of 120 miles, an altitude sufficiently high that a number of revolutions could be studied. The importance of the oblateness component of the earth's gravitational field is shown by the fact that a satellite launched at circular orbital speed, neglecting oblateness, has a perigee some 67,000 feet lower when oblateness forces are included in the equations of motion than when they are not included. Also, the loss in altitude per revolution is double that of a satellite following an orbit not subject to oblateness. The effect of atmospheric rotation on the loss of altitude per revolution was small. As might be surmised, the regression of the line of nodes as predicted by celestial mechanics is unchanged when drag is included. It is clear that the inclination of the orbital plane to the equator will be relatively unaffected by drag for no atmospheric rotation since the drag lies in the orbital plane in this case. With the inclusion of atmospheric rotation it was found that the inclination of the plane changed about one-millionth of a radian per revolution. Thus the prediction of the position of the orbital plane of an earth satellite is not complicated by the introduction of drag. The line of apsides, which without drag but with oblateness moves slowly in space, tends to move with the satellite when drag is included in the calculations. As a results, the usual linearized solutions based on oblateness alone must be basically altered when drag is included to take into account the rapid movement of the line of apsides. In the second illustrative example the final revolution was calculated to impact for a number of trajectories in an orbital plane inclined at 650 to the equator. Of particular interest is the large effect the oblateness gravitational field and atmospheric rotation can have on the impact point. For a value of CDA/m of unity, and for an initial downward angle at 80 miles altitude of 0.01 radian, such as might be utilized for manned re-entry, oblateness had an influence of about 300 miles in the impact point, and atmospheric rotation had about a 150-mile influence.

Nielsen, Jack N.↗
NASA NTRS1999

Navigating Mars Global Surveyor Through the Martian Atmosphere: Aerobraking 2

The Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) spacecraft was successfully inserted into an elliptical orbit around Mars on 9/12/97, 01:53:49 UTC. This orbit was near polar (inclination=93.26 deg) with an orbital period of 44.993 hours and apoapsis and periapsis altitudes of 54,025.9 km and 262.9 km respectively. After 201 orbits and 196 days after Mars orbit insertion, the first phase of aerobraking (AB), called AB 1, has ended; after the AB 1 termination maneuver, the orbital period was 11.64 hours with apoapsis and periapsis altitudes of 17,870.3 and 170.7 Ian respectively. Thereafter, MGS was in a science phasing orbit (SPO) and acquired data from the science instruments from 3/28/98 to 9/22/98 (orbits 202 through 572). The second phase of aerobraking (AB2) began on 9/23/98 with the first descent into the atmosphere on P574 and ended with the aerobraking termination maneuver (ABX) on 2/4/99 on A 1284. Just prior to ABX, the apoapsis and periapsis altitudes were 456.5 km and 116.7 km respectively with an orbit period of 1.973 hours, a local mean solar time (LMST) at the descending node of 2 hours, 3.6 minutes and an inclination of 92.9 degrees. AB was responsible for circularization of the MGS orbit. However, two additional orbital conditions had to be satisfied simultaneously. These were a) complete AB2 when the LMST at the descending node was close to 2:00 am and b) the inclination was at 93.0 degrees. This paper describes the navigation of MGS throughout AB2; a companion paper describes the strategy and plan for aerobraking. Navigation challenges involved: a) the estimation of an atmospheric density model for every drag pass or periapsis-passage by analyzing doppler tracking data, b) the generation of a short-term, that is over one to several orbits, accurate atmospheric density predictions, c) maintaining the spacecraft's orbit within upper and lower bounds of atmospheric density or dynamic pressure during each periapsis-passage, and d) the prediction of accurate periapsis-passage times (Tp) over one to fifteen orbits. The density estimation and analysis procedure, evaluation of almost 700 atmospheric densities throughout AB2, the variation and accuracy of density predictions, the Tp prediction accuracy and how effectively we terminated AB2 are the basis of this paper and shall be presented in detail. A summary overview of AB2 is given.

Esposito, P.↗
NASA NTRS1999

Very Precise Orbits of 1998 Leonid Meteors

Seventy-five orbits of Leonid meteors obtained during the 1998 outburst are presented. Thirty-eight are precise enough to recognize significant dispersion in orbital elements. Results from the nights of 1998 November 16/17 and 17/18 differ, in agreement with the dominant presence of different dust components. The shower rate profile of 1998 November 16/17 was dominated by a broad component, rich in bright meteors. The radiant distribution is compact. The semimajor axis is confined to values close to that of the parent comet, whereas the distribution of inclination has a central condensation in a narrow range. On the other hand, 1998 November 17/18 was dominated by dust responsible for a more narrow secondary peak in the flux curve. The declination of the radiant and the inclination of the orbit are more widely dispersed. The argument of perihelion, inclination, and the perihelion distance are displaced. These data substantiate the hypothesis that trapping in orbital resonances is important for the dynamical evolution of the broad component.

Betlem, Hans↗
NASA NTRS2000

The nu Andromedae System: Models and Stability

Radial velocity observations of the F8 V star nu Andromedae taken at Lick and at Whipple Observatories have revealed evidence of three periodicities in the line-of-sight velocity of the star. These periodicities have been interpreted as evidence for at least three low-mass companions (LMCs) revolving around nu Andromedae. The mass and orbital parameters inferred for these companions raise questions about the dynamical stability of the system. We report here results from our independent analysis of the published radial velocity data, as well as new unpublished data taken at Lick Observatory. Our results confirm the finding of three periods in the data. Our best fits to the data, on the assumption that these periods arise from the gravitational perturbations of companions in Keplerian orbits, are also generally in agreement but with some differences from the earlier findings. We find that the available data do not constrain well the orbital eccentricity of the middle companion in a three-companion model of the data. We also find that in order for our best-fit model to the Lick data to be dynamically stable over the lifetime of the star (approximately 2 billion years), the system must have a mean inclination to the plane of the sky greater than 13 deg. The corresponding minimum inclination for the best fit to the Whipple data set is 19 deg. These values imply that the maximum mass for the outer companion can be no greater than about 20 Jupiter masses. Our analysis of the stability of the putative systems also places constraints on the relative inclinations of the orbital planes of the companions. We comment on global versus local (i.e., method of steepest descent) means of finding best-fit orbits from radial velocity data sets.

Stepinski, Tomasz F.↗
NASA NTRS2002

Synthetic Jet Interaction With A Turbulent Boundary Layer Flow

Perhaps one of the more notable advances to have occurred in flow control technology in the last fifteen years is the application of surface-issuing jets for separation control on aerodynamic surfaces. The concept was introduced by Johnston and Night (1990) who proposed using circular jets, skewed and inclined to the wall, to generate streamwise vortices for the purpose of mitigating boundary layer separation. The skew and inclination angles have subsequently been shown to affect the strength and sign of the ensuing vortices. With a non-circular orifice, in addition to skew and inclination, the yaw angle of the major axis of the orifice can influence the flow control effectiveness of the jet. In particular, a study by Chang arid Collins (1997) revealed that a non-circular orifice, yawed relative to the freestream, can be used to control the size and strength of the vortices produced by the control jet. This early work used jets with only a steady injection of mass. Seifert et al. revealed that an unsteady blowing jet, could be as effective at separation control as a steady jet but with less mass flow. Seifert et al. showed that small amplitude blowing oscillations superimposed on a low momentum steady jet Was the most effective approach to delaying separation on a NACA 0015 airfoil at post-stall angles of attack. More recent work suggests that perhaps the most efficient jet control effect comes from a synthetic (oscillatory) jet where the time-averaged mass flux through the orifice is zero, but the net wall normal momentum is non-zero. The control effectiveness of synthetic jets has been demonstrated for several internal and external flow fields used synthetic jet control on a thick, blunt-nosed airfoil to delay stall well beyond the stall angles for the uncontrolled airfoil and with a dramatic increase in the lift-to-drag performance. Amitay et al. used an array of synthetic jets to mitigate flow separation in curved and diffusing ducts. While the control effectiveness of synthetic jet actuators in an application setting has been confirmed through a number of studies, the fluid dynamic mechanism by which control is effected is not well understood. Issues like yaw angle arid velocity ratio that have been studied for steady control jets have not been investigated for synthetic jets. Moreover, the role played by the inherently unsteady nature of a synthetic jet in the interaction with the controlled flow is not known. Some recent work by Rinehart and Glazer and Smith suggests that away from tile immediate vicinity of the jet orifice the flow field is steady in the mean, and that the interaction of a synthetic jet and a boundary layer creates a secondary flow in the boundary layer consisting primarily of streamwise vortices.

Smith, Douglas R.↗
NASA NTRS2003

Accretion Disk Spectra of the Ultra-luminous X-ray Sources in Nearby Spiral Galaxies and Galactic Superluminal Jet Sources

Ultra-luminous Compact X-ray Sources (ULXs) in nearby spiral galaxies and Galactic superluminal jet sources share the common spectral characteristic that they have unusually high disk temperatures which cannot be explained in the framework of the standard optically thick accretion disk in the Schwarzschild metric. On the other hand, the standard accretion disk around the Kerr black hole might explain the observed high disk temperature, as the inner radius of the Kerr disk gets smaller and the disk temperature can be consequently higher. However, we point out that the observable Kerr disk spectra becomes significantly harder than Schwarzschild disk spectra only when the disk is highly inclined. This is because the emission from the innermost part of the accretion disk is Doppler-boosted for an edge-on Kerr disk, while hardly seen for a face-on disk. The Galactic superluminal jet sources are known to be highly inclined systems, thus their energy spectra may be explained with the standard Kerr disk with known black hole masses. For ULXs, on the other hand, the standard Kerr disk model seems implausible, since it is highly unlikely that their accretion disks are preferentially inclined, and, if edge-on Kerr disk model is applied, the black hole mass becomes unreasonably large (greater than or approximately equal to 300 Solar Mass). Instead, the slim disk (advection dominated optically thick disk) model is likely to explain the observed super- Eddington luminosities, hard energy spectra, and spectral variations of ULXs. We suggest that ULXs are accreting black holes with a few tens of solar mass, which is not unexpected from the standard stellar evolution scenario, and their X-ray emission is from the slim disk shining at super-Eddington luminosities.

White, Nicholas E.↗
NASA NTRS2003

Solar Sail Application to Comet Nucleus Sample Return

Many comets have perihelions at distances within 1.0 Astronomical Unit (AU) from the sun. These comets typically are inclined out of the ecliptic. We propose that a solar sail spacecraft could be used to increase the inclination of the orbit to match that of these 1.0 AU comets. The solar sail spacecraft would match the orbit velocity for a short period of time, which would be long enough for a container to be injected into the comet's nucleus. The container would be extended from a long durable tether so that the solar sail would not be required to enter into the potentially degrading environment of the comet s atmosphere. Once the container has been filled with sample material, the tether is retracted. The solar sail would then lower its inclination and fly back to Earth for the sample return. In this paper, we describe the selection of cometary targets, the mission design, and the solar sailcraft design suitable for sail-comet rendezvous as well as possible rendezvous scenarios.

Taylor, Travis S.↗
NASA NTRS2003

Tracing the Magnetic Field in Orion A

We use extensive 350 micron polarimetry and continuum maps obtained with Hertz and SHARC II along with HCN and HCO(sup +) spectroscopic data to trace the orientation of the magnetic field in the Orion A star-forming region. Using the polarimetry data, we find that the direction of the projection of the magnetic field in the plane of the sky relative to the orientation of the integral-shaped filament varies considerably as one moves from north to south. While in IRAS 05327-0457 and OMC-3 MMS 1-6 the projection of the field is primarily perpendicular to the filament it becomes better aligned with it at OMC-3 MMS 8-9 and well aligned with it at OMC-2 FIR 6. The OMC-2 FIR 4 cloud, located between the last two, is a peculiar object where we find almost no polarization. There is a relatively sharp boundary within its core where two adjacent regions exhibiting differing polarization angles merge. The projected angle of the field is more complicated in OMC-1 where it exhibits smooth variations in its orientation across the face of this massive complex. We also note that while the relative orientation of the projected angle of the magnetic field to the filament varies significantly in the OMC-3 and OMC-2 regions, its orientation relative to a fixed position on the sky shows much more stability. This suggests that, perhaps, the orientation of the field is relatively unaffected by the mass condensations present in these parts of the molecular cloud. By combining the polarimetry and spectroscopic data we were able to measure a set of average d u e s for the inclination angle of the magnetic field relative to the line of sight. We find that the field is oriented quite close to the plane of the sky in most places. More precisely, the inclination of the magnetic field is approx. = 73 deg around OMC-3 MMS 6, approx. = 74 deg at OMC-3 MMS 8-9, approx. = 80 deg at OMC-2 FIR 4, approx. = 65 deg in the northeastern part of OMC-1, and approx. = 49 deg in the Bas. The small difference in the inclination of the field between OMC-3 and OMC-2 seems to strengthen the idea that the orientation of the magnetic field is relatively unaffected by the agglomeration of matter located in these regions. We also present polarimetry data for the OMC-4 region located some 13 min. south of OMC-1.

Dowell, C. Darren↗
NASA NTRS2001

Neutron dosimetry in low-earth orbit using passive detectors

This paper summarizes neutron dosimetry measurements made by the USF Physics Research Laboratory aboard US and Russian LEO spacecraft over the past 20 years using two types of passive detector. Thermal/resonance neutron detectors exploiting the 6Li(n,T) alpha reaction were used to measure neutrons of energies <1 MeV. Fission foil neutron detectors were used to measure neutrons of energies above 1 MeV. While originally analysed in terms of dose equivalent using the NCRP-38 definition of quality factor, for the purposes of this paper the measured neutron data have been reanalyzed and are presented in terms of ambient dose equivalent. Dose equivalent rate for neutrons <1 MeV ranged from 0.80 microSv/d on the low altitude, low inclination STS-41B mission to 22.0 microSv/d measured in the Shuttle's cargo bay on the highly inclined STS-51F Spacelab-2 mission. In one particular instance a detector embedded within a large hydrogenous mass on STS-61 (in the ECT experiment) measured 34.6 microSv/d. Dose equivalent rate measurements of neutrons >1 MeV ranged from 4.5 microSv/d on the low altitude STS-3 mission to 172 microSv/d on the ~6 year LDEF mission. Thermal neutrons (<0.3 eV) were observed to make a negligible contribution to neutron dose equivalent in all cases. The major fraction of neutron dose equivalent was found to be from neutrons >1 MeV and, on LDEF, neutrons >1 MeV are responsible for over 98% of the total neutron dose equivalent. Estimates of the neutron contribution to the total dose equivalent are somewhat lower than model estimates, ranging from 5.7% at a location under low shielding on LDEF to 18.4% on the highly inclined (82.3 degrees) Biocosmos-2044 mission. c2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

Flight Experiment↗
NASA NTRS1997

Measurements of LET distribution and dose equivalent onboard the Space Shuttle IML-2 (STS-65) and S/MM#4 (STS-79)

Space radiation dosimetry measurements have been made onboard the Space Shuttle STS-65 in the Second International Microgravity Laboratory (IML-2: 28.5 degrees x 300 km: 14.68 days) and the STS-79 in the 4th Shuttle MIR mission (S/MM#4: 51.6 degrees x 300-400km: 10.2 days). In these measurements, three kinds of detectors were used; one is a newly developed active detector telescope called "Real-time Radiation Monitoring Device (RRMD-I for IML-2 and RRMD-II with improved triggering system for S/MM#4)" utilizing silicon semi-conductor detectors and the other detectors are conventional passive detectors of thermoluminescence dosimeters (TLDs) and CR-39 plastic track detectors. The main contribution to dose equivalent for particles with LET > 5.0 keV/micrometer (IML-2) and LET > 3.5 keV/micrometer (S/MM#4) is seen to be due to galactic cosmic rays (GCRs) and the contribution of the South Atlantic Anomaly (SAA) is less than 5% (IML-2: 28.5 degrees x 300 km) and 15% (S/MM#4: 51.6 degrees x 400 km) in the above RRMD LET detection conditions. For the whole LET range (> 0.2 kev/micrometer) obtained by TLDs and CR-39 in these two typical orbits (a small inclination x low altitude and a large inclination x high altitude), absorbed dose rates range from 94 to 114 microGy/day, dose equivalent rates from 186 to 207 microSv/day and average quality factors from 1.82 to 2.00 depending on the locations and directions of detectors inside the Spacelab at the highly protected IML-2 orbit (28.5 degrees x 300 km), and also, absorbed dose rates range from 290 to 367 microGy/day, dose equivalent rates from 582 to 651 microSv/day and average quality factors from 1.78 to 2.01 depending on the dosimeter packages around the RRMD-II "Detector Unit" at the S/MM#4 orbit (5l.6 degrees x 400km). In general, it is seen that absorbed doses depend on the orbit altitude (SAA trapped particles contribution dominant) and dose equivalents on the orbit inclination (GCR contribution dominant). The LET distributions obtained by two different types of active and passive detectors, RRMDs and CR-39, are in good agreement for LET of 15 - 200 kev/micrometer and difference of these distributions in the regions of LET < 15 kev/micrometer and LET > 200 kev/micrometer can be explained by considering characteristics of CR-39 etched track formation especially for the low LET tracks and chemical etching conditions.

manned↗
NASA NTRS1994

Radiation dosimetry measurements during U.S. Space Shuttle missions with the RME-III

Time-resolved radiation dosimetry measurements inside the crew compartment have been made during recent Shuttle missions with the U.S. Air Force Radiation Monitoring Equipment-III (RME-III), a portable battery-powered four-channel tissue equivalent proportional counter. Results from the first six missions are presented and discussed. Half of the missions had orbital inclinations of 28.5 degrees with the remainder at inclinations of 57 degrees or greater; altitudes ranged from 300 to 600 km. The determined dose equivalent rates ranged from 70 to 5300 microSv/day. The RME-III measurements are in good agreement with other dosimetry measurements made aboard the vehicles. Measurements indicate that medium- and high-LET particles contribute less than 2% of the particle fluence for all missions, but up to 50% of the dose equivalent, depending on the spacecraft's altitude and orbital inclination. Isocontours of fluence, dose and dose equivalent rate have been developed from measurements made during the STS-28 mission. The drift rate of the South Atlantic Anomaly is estimated to be 0.49 degrees W/yr and 0.12 degrees N/yr. The calculated trapped proton and GCR dose for the STS-28 mission was significantly lower than the measured values.

STS-28 Shuttle Project↗