When the Artemis II astronauts left LEO, they were the first in more than 50 years to brave the radiation of cislunar space.
Czech company ADVACAM has six chips flying on the mission to measure how cosmic radiation effects the astronauts—and the electronics on Orion. The aim is to verify radiation shielding on Orion is working as designed, using tech that has already gotten a test drive aboard the ISS.
HERA comes the sun: The chips are embedded in a radiation-sensing instrument called HERA, or Hybrid Electronic Radiation Assessor. With the sun at solar maximum, HERA serves as an instant warning system if a solar flare emerges. To minimize radiation exposure, the crew would move to the storage (central) area of their spacecraft and surround themselves with stowage bags.
Future vision: The goal is for the data collected on Artemis II to make future spaceflights safer too.
- Radiation damage to spacecraft can cause them to lose control or communication, increasing the likelihood of space debris. ADVACAM wants to help companies make good design decisions for radiation to better shield space orbits from spacecraft collisions.
- ADVACAM also wants to embed sensors on various spacecraft to forecast radiation conditions in LEO. This will not only help spacecraft, the company says, but also high-altitude flights, the power grid, and comms and nav systems that depend on space assets.
Dreaming of electric seep: The chip tech originated from the Large Hadron Collider. Then the radiation environment monitors (REMs) first flew to the ISS in 2012, using a single silicon detector called Timepix. The tech was developed in collaboration with CERN, the Czech Technical University in Prague, the University of Houston, and JSC.
As demand grew, ADVACAM formed in 2013 as a spinoff of the Czech university’s institute of experimental and applied physics. Since then, “we’ve delivered different custom solutions for different types of space missions,” an ADVACAM spokesperson said said. They even flew versions of HERA twice already on Orion: around Earth in 2014 for Exploration Test Flight-1, and around the Moon in 2022 for Artemis I.
But it’s the ISS work that has been the foundation of HERA’s success, ADVACAM said. “For the Artemis II mission, we’re definitely building on this long-term experience with the ISS modules, which helps us to always push our technology forward.”
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