electronics and humans.
The success of space missions can be severely impacted by the harsh radiation conditions encountered during spaceflight. Galactic Cosmic Rays (GCR) and radiation from Solar Particle Events (SPE) are a form of ionizing radiation composed of very energetic atomic nuclei (ions) which can be highly penetrating and damaging in nature; they can cause adverse effects to critical space mission components, such as on-board electronics, and pose a serious threat to the feasibility of long duration human spaceflights.
Satellites in space are affected by radiation, with high-energy particles coming variously from the Sun, trapped in planetary magnetic fields or originating from deep space (Image: ESA).
Single Event Effects (SEE) are errors caused by the interaction of single, energetic particles with electronic components and can compromise mission success already at an early stage due to their stochastic nature. Qualifying electronics in ground-based irradiation facilities is a key step to ensure their reliability and availability in space.
Long-term exposure to GCRs can also yield damage to biological tissues. Shielding materials provide the only effective countermeasure to limit the dose received by astronauts and testing is required in order to establish their effectiveness in a representative radiation field.
Heavy ion beams with energies above 100 MeV/n (energy per nucleon) are needed today to cope with the growing complexity of qualifying electronics and to be representative of the physical nature of GCR radiation, for both electronics and biological systems. Ions of such high energy can only be obtained in dedicated particle accelerator facilities, a resource which is very scarce and of low maturity in Europe.
HEARTS project tackles this shortcoming. This project will deliver two equally valuable high-energy particle accelerators for radiation testing at GSI and CERN.
Using these accelerators, scientists will be able to experimentally simulate the cosmic ray environment. Already within the duration of the project, they will provide high-energy heavy ion beams (>100 MeV/n) that meet the requirements of the European space industry for testing advanced electronic devices.
