Conceptual Design of an Experiment for the International Space Station About Cosmic Ray Shielding Materials

Abstract

Cosmic ray (CR) shielding is the main issue for future long missions far for the protection of the Earth’s magnetic field. Many experiments have been performed in Space to evaluate the effect of the Space environment on the material stability (mainly MISSE experiments from NASA). However those experiments were not able to evaluate CR shielding performances of materials, and results are mainly present in the form of erosion yield due to atomic oxygen erosion. In this study, a conceptual design is shown for further experiments on the International Space Station by focusing on the effect of cosmic rays on material aging. Shields will be made by using polyolefin sheets coupled or not with metallic foils. Polymeric sheets will be filled or coated with magnetic nano-particles to provide a small magnetic activity.