investigating space radiation
Sarah Shoorian; S. Amir Hossein Feghhi; Hamid Jafari; Reza Amjadifard
Volume 16, Issue 2 , June 2023, , Pages 19-26
Abstract
Protection of astronauts and electronic components in satellites and spacecraft against space rays is one of the most important primary requirements in space missions. In this work, the effect of three materials, aluminum, as the most common material, polyethylene and a graded-z structure, in the protection ...
Read More
Protection of astronauts and electronic components in satellites and spacecraft against space rays is one of the most important primary requirements in space missions. In this work, the effect of three materials, aluminum, as the most common material, polyethylene and a graded-z structure, in the protection of space radiations has been evaluated. The calculations of the dose caused by these radiations on the human body and a silicon piece have been carried out by MCNPX Monte Carlo code,. The dose caused by cosmic rays has been calculated after applying shields of aluminum, graded-z structure and polyethylene. The results showed that by using polyethylene and about 4.4% increase in weight compared to the aluminum shield, it is possible to reduce the dose caused by photons by more than 50% in the human body and 30% in silicon parts, and the dose caused by protons by about 30%. It cut both for astronauts and electronic components. Graded-z shielding performed very well in the dose attenuation caused by photons, but appeared ineffective in the dose attenuation caused by protons.
Space systems design (spacecraft, satellites, space stations and their equipment)
Omid Shekoofa; Farhad Bagheroskouei; Reza Amjadifard
Volume 15, Issue 3 , September 2022, , Pages 93-108
Abstract
In this paper, the feasibility and performance of using solar arrays equipped with sun concentrators, along with other conventional solar array structures, in CubeSats, is investigated for the first time. For this purpose, seven different structures of solar arrays have been defined and implemented for ...
Read More
In this paper, the feasibility and performance of using solar arrays equipped with sun concentrators, along with other conventional solar array structures, in CubeSats, is investigated for the first time. For this purpose, seven different structures of solar arrays have been defined and implemented for more than 24 different CubeSat configurations from 0.25U to 27U. Then, by calculating important system-level parameters such as power generation density, power generation cost, reliability of solar arrays, and also a newly proposed parameter, called shape fit factor, the performance of these structures for the introduced configurations are evaluated and compared. To this end, and by considering rational coefficients, a cost function consisting of the four above-mentioned parameters is defined as the degree of merit of different solar array structures used in each CubeSat configuration. The results show that alongside the use of deployable solar arrays, using concentrating solar arrays can provide new capabilities for CubeSats to overcome the challenge of generating sufficient power.
