BOULDER The upcoming Artemis moon crew missions, which will send astronauts beyond the protective cocoon of Earth’s magnetic field, are prompting a look at the rules of flight and sharpening space weather forecasting skills.
Our planets atmosphere and magnetic field protect us from the steady stream of radiation and charged particles emitted by the Sun. But explosions from the Sun, as highlighted recently by the May 10 super-strong geomagnetic storm that hit Earth via solar flares and coronal mass ejections, can also be a threat to crews heading for the Moon.
Given the recent powerful solar flares, what impact would it have on Artemis operations if a crewed mission were underway?
Remove the risk
Fortunately, most spacecraft designed for human exploration, including those for Artemis, are designed to protect our astronauts from most of this radiation risk, said Ian Cohen, deputy chief scientist for space exploration at the Applied Physics Laboratory. Johns Hopkins. SpaceNews.
There are also protocols at NASA to monitor and respond to such events and specially designed areas of the shuttle where astronauts can shelter to get out of danger, Cohen added.
The biggest potential threat is if astronauts were outside the spacecraft performing an extravehicular activity either in space or on the surface of the Moon, Cohen said.
In that scenario NASA would monitor the event and potentially change mission plans, possibly canceling [extravehicular activity] to protect the astronauts. So while radiation is a potential risk for extreme events, NASA is actively monitoring the situation and has procedures in place to keep our astronauts safe, Cohen said.
Predict, warn, notice
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) is working with NASA space radiation specialists to strengthen space weather support for human expeditions to the Moon.
In late 2025, NASA’s Artemis 2 mission will be the first manned approach to the Moon. The 10-day walk will be the first human trip there since the Apollo-era moon flights ended in December 1972.
“We are well prepared for this next Artemis mission to do the best job of predicting, warning and alerting astronauts when solar events could be a human health issue,” said Shawn Dahl, a SWPC service coordinator.
Dahl said SpaceNews that today’s forecasting toolkit contains better modeling capabilities, higher quality spacecraft data to measure the types and levels of particles ejected from the Sun, along with better computer and communications technology to detected and alerted to disturbing events.
Dahl said these capabilities could provide a better idea of when to give the Artemis astronauts the all-clear.
Wanted: more loyalty
Space agencies are working hard to provide the best models for solar weather, explained Hazel Bain, science director for the University of Colorado Cooperative Institute for Environmental Science Research at the Space Weather Prediction Center.
There are a number of solar proton prediction models in the research field being evaluated by NASA and SWPC, Bain said, with the idea of moving the best modeling from the research field to the operations field.
In many ways, what we were trying to envision for the new Artemis missions, and looking forward to Mars, is very similar to what we were trying to do for the Apollo era, Bain said. Return to the Moon is challenging us to understand how well we know this prediction topic and how we can improve our predictions.
More detailed data is needed, Bain added, on when an event will end and what the peak flow will be.
Both Bain and Dahl SWPCs point to the planned June 25 launch of NOAA’s GOES-U. It is the fourth and final satellite in NOAA’s advanced series of geostationary satellites and is equipped with an additional space weather instrument, the Naval Research Laboratories Compact Coronagraph. It will image the solar corona and be used to observe Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs).
Next year, Bain and Dahl continued, NOAA expects to launch its Space Weather Follow On Lagrange 1 (SWFO-L1) spacecraft. Once on duty in its L1 orbit, it will provide a continuous, unobstructed view of the Sun’s corona without interference from Earth. SWFO-L1 also has a compact coronagraph to spot coronal mass ejections emanating from the Sun.
Crew safety
The ability to better assess disturbances on the Sun is close, so now Orion mission planners have begun working on a crew safety plan for when a dangerous surge in solar activity arises.
Steve Johnson, a research engineer with the Space Radiation Analysis Group (SRAG) at NASA’s Johnson Space Center, gave a look at the four-seat Orion spacecraft and its 10-foot inner diameter during a space weather workshop of April held in Boulder, Colorado, organized. by the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research and co-sponsored in part by SWPC and NASA’s Heliophysics Division.
Flight rules related to solar events are only at a draft stage, he said, with much work ahead in the process. For radiation monitoring, Orion carries detectors, caution and warning alarms, with crew members equipped with active dosimeters, Johnson said.
While Orion is relatively well protected, Johnson said that in the event of a disruptive solar event, Artemis’s draft flight rules would require astronauts to create a shelter using two central storage bays emptied of contents. Doing so would create a lower dose zone within the confines of the capsule. Storage from the central bays, he said, will be moved to a known “hot spot” inside Orion, to help reduce the dose rate around the spacecraft.
Meanwhile, the team is currently sorting out what procedures could be taken by crew members walking on the moon if an energetic solar proton episode occurs.
A person flying over the lunar terrain has eight hours of viable consumables, Johnson said, so returning to the safe haven of a lunar lander within one to four hours is a consideration. But all of that is still work ahead, he said, with flight rules intended to be in place for the first Artemis astronauts to cross the moon, now expected to happen in September 2026.
Engineering solutions, observational and predictive skills
Attending the space weather meeting was Tonya Ladwig, vice president of human space exploration and Orion program manager for Lockheed Martin Space, the spacecraft’s builder.
Ladwig noted that cell and tissue damage in humans from charged particles can lead to short- and long-term health impacts. But she emphasized the value of engineering solutions plus NOAA and NASA’s space weather observation and forecasting capabilities, noting Orion’s design to shield against high-energy protons, galactic cosmic rays and secondary particles.
Additionally, Ladwig noted that Orions electronics will also be protected from solar weather, as the spacecraft features built-in redundancy of its radiation-hardened electronics combined with fault detection and recovery to mitigate the risk of loss. of the mission.
Strategies to mitigate risks to both spacecraft and humans must be developed and implemented by government and industry specialists, Ladwig advised.
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