A Comparison between Models of the Moon Radiation Environment and the Data from the RADOM Experiment onboard the Indian CHANDRAYAAN-1 Satellite
- Paper ID
5751
- author
- company
Istituto Superiore di Sanita (ISS); Bulgarian Academy of Sciences; ; Nuclear Physics Institute, Czech Academy of Sciences
- country
Italy
- year
2010
- abstract
Radiation environmental models have been developed in the framework of the RADOM investigation that is onboard the CHANDRAYAAN-1 mission by the Indian Space Agency ISRO. Models for the Moon radiation environment already developed have been used to be compared with the data coming from the RADOM experiment: models of Galactic Cosmic Rays (GCR) and Solar Particle Events (SPE) primary particles impinging on the lunar surface, transported through the subsurface layers, with backscattering taken into account, and interacting with some described targets. The lunar surface and subsurface has been modeled as regolith and bedrock, with structure and composition taken from the results of the instruments of the Luna, Ranger, Lunar Surveyor and Apollo missions, as well as from groundbased measurements. The models have been set to 100 km and 200 km altitude circular orbits, to the actual mission time frame (both punctual and averaged data), and to the actual environmental shielding inside the spacecraft. The detailed comparative analysis between models and data is currently underway, along with better trajectory analyses, with preliminary comparisons giving quite satisfactory results.