Year: 2023
Type: dissertation
Abstract: Understanding the long-term radiation environment at the surface of Mars allows us to estimate the exposure for future robotic and crewed missions. Current Martian exploration missions carry instruments sensitive to ionizing and non-ionizing radiation. The Dynamic Albedo Neutron (DAN) instrument onboard Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) can detect thermal and epithermal neutrons backscattered from a pulsed neutron generator or Galactic Cosmic Rays (GCR). In addition to DAN, there are two other radiation-measuring instruments currently operating at Mars: the MSL Radiation Assessment Detector (RAD), designed to characterize the dose exposures due to charged particles, gamma rays, and neutrons on the surface, and the Mars Odyssey High Energy Neutron Detector (HEND) detects a wide energy range of neutron from orbit. This research presents the numerical correlations with Monte Carlo simulations and DAN, RAD, and HEND instruments data fitting to derive the Martian neutron flux at different energies. The resulting measurement-based neutron spectrum covers a wide energy range and is used to estimate dose rates for various environmental conditions on Mars.
Author: Martinez Sierra, Luz Maria
Language: English
Subfield: Space and Planetary Science
Field: Earth and Planetary Sciences
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7015926208