NASA’s Deep Space Test Bed
for Radiation Shielding Studies

The Scientific Objectives for the DSTB facility are:

  1. Provide a platform for direct exposure to the interplanetary Galactic Cosmic Ray Composition and full energy spectra

  2. Enable experimental validation of NASA’s radiation transport codes used to protect astronauts from space radiation

  3. Test the radiation shielding effectiveness of typical as well as novel spacecraft construction materials

  4. Development and testing new radiation monitoring instrumentation  
                       

Implementation Strategy of the DSTB Facility:

  • Utilize NASA’s Sub-orbital Stratospheric Balloon Program to lift the exposure platform above the shielding effects of Earth’s atmosphere

  • Leverage the NSF’s U.S. Polar program to conduct circumpolar flights at latitudes above the geomagnetic cut-off for galactic cosmic rays

  • Provide a central facility to support individual investigators’ experiment integration on the DSTB gondola and ground support elements

  • Provide support for flight operations

Launch Operations at Williams Field, Antarctica. Flight path of one circumnavigation of Antarctica . Flight durations for polar flights last from 10 to 30 days.

Micrograph of a Nuclear Track Emulsion previously flown on a LDB flight in Antarctica. The thick track in the center is a high charge and high energy cosmic ray recorded in the emulsion. The other tracks seen in the picture are records of other primary cosmic rays and secondary particles from cosmic ray interactions in the atmosphere. Micrograph of a high-energy particle (sulfur) interaction in nuclear track emulsions. The sulfur nucleus is incident from the top and numerous secondary particles can be seen to emanate from the point where the sulfur nucleus strikes a nucleus in the emulsion. Among the secondary particles are a heavy fragment in the forward region, a few slow fragments from the struck nucleus in the emulsion and several high energy singly charged particles (Powell, 1959).
author: Mark Christl
curator: Leonard Howell
responsible official: John M. Davis