Self-Isolation in Space

Commander Chris Hadfield provides some excellent advice on how to successfully self-isolate as he did on the ISS.

1. Understand the actual risk

2. Define your mission

3. Look at your constraints

4. Take action

Astronaut Anne McKay also provides her top tips for self-isolation .

The McMaster Interdisciplinary Satellite Team would also like to express our deepest gratitude to the health professionals, doctors, nurses, and all those on the front lines fighting this virus, including suppliers for medical PPE helping to keep the virus contained. Thank you to the delivery workers, cashiers, infrastructural maintenance crews, and all other essential workers who are helping keep us supplied and comfortable in our homes in these difficult times.

Please do your part to help our heroes. Stay at home and avoid nonessential trips to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

Stay safe everyone.

World Cancer Day 2020

February 4 is World Cancer Day, a day dedicated to raising awareness on how to fight and prevent cancer. One of the main considerations in the future of human spaceflight is the unfortunately increased risk of cancer development. There is evidence that a high dose of ionizing radiation causes human ailments, including cancer (Brenner, 2003). While there are approximations of the different levels of exposure to expect on a long term space flight, there are still some inaccuracies that we require further research.

Many of our team members have been impacted by cancer in the lives of friends and family, and it remains a major motivation behind our mission. Our payload will house the CNP-TEPC, an instrument capable of differentiating charged and neutral particles (therefore ionizing vs. non-ionizing radiation) in Low Earth Orbit. This research will be valuable to better estimate the radiation doses to expect during human spaceflight in outer space. This research relates to our ability to plan for increased cancer risk to crew and passengers in long term space missions.

Source: www.mesotheliomaguide.com

A New Decade

As we flip the calendar to a new decade, we’d like to reflect on the origins of the NEUDOSE mission and look forward to the exciting years ahead.

NEUDOSE began on January 30, 2015, through the efforts of Principal Investigators Dr. Andrei Hanu, Dr. Soo Hyun Byun, and McMaster University graduate students. Their mission was to study the effects of radiation on the human body using a satellite with a scientific payload to measure the expected dosage from Low Earth Orbit. The implications of this research would directly contribute to studies required for Mars-destined manned space travel. This massive mission required support, and we began the recruitment of more McMaster students. Thus, NEUDOSE (NEUtron DOSimetry & Exploration) was born.

Throughout the years, the team behind NEUDOSE grew and we gained more experience in the space industry. We participated in programs such as HASP (High Altitude Student Platform) in 2017, 2018, and 2019. These contributions helped us refine our designs, experiment with different solutions, and practice communicating with our payload.

In 2018, we created the McMaster Interdisciplinary Satellite Team (MIST), a distinct student team at McMaster University. We re-categorized the group of students working on NEUDOSE with the intent of working on future missions. Also in 2018, the Canadian Space Agency announced that we would participate in their Canadian CubeSat Project.

Now, MIST is a team with over 65 members from 4 different faculties and we are currently in the final design phase of NEUDOSE.

Planned for the next decade, the NEUDOSE mission aims for outer space with an anticipated payload launch from the ISS in 2021. We could not have gotten here without the constant support of our sponsors and followers, and we are extremely gracious for your encouragement. We look forward to seeing the result of 5 years of hard work come to fruition.

The NEUDOSE team in 2015

STARS 2016

STARS 2017

The MIST team in 2019

Space Aspriations - Space Cafe 2019

This week, the McMaster Planetary Society hosted a Space Cafe where students who have kick-started their career into the space industry spoke about their experiences. Current and former McMaster Interdisciplinary Satellite Team members, Michael Stramenga, Devan Wagner, and Hira Nadeem, listed the NEUDOSE mission as a major career influence.

Michael, former NEUDOSE project manager, discussed his space-related club experiences and his work terms at CalTech and NASA JPL along with the lessons he learned along the way.

Devan, NEUDOSE co-project manager, spoke about his work as a co-founder of the NEUDOSE mission - how he helped bring the mission from a small project to a CSA funded mission set to launch in 2021.

Hira, NEUDOSE Command and Data Handling team lead, cited the influence of the space conferences she attended and how they led to connections that made space her career.

Chimira Andres, Western MSc. graduate student in planetary geophysics, was also a speaker at the cafe who detailed her Masters experiences and how her studies in the glacial Arctic are compared to the planets, including Mars’ polar ice caps.

TEPCs aboard the ISS

A Tissue Equivalent Proportional Counter (TEPC) is what is used to measure radiation doses on tissue equivalent, or carbon based, cell models. While our team has worked to develop our own TEPC for use in our planned payload, there is also a TEPC existing aboard the ISS.

The IV-TEPC (Intra-Vehicular TEPC) is within the confines of the ISS and acts as a dosimeter/exposure tracker for the astronauts on board. This placement means it only receives the radiation that makes it through the intense ISS shielding. Another main purpose is to validate the efficacy of the shielding.

The difference between our team’s TEPC and the existing IV-TEPC aboard the ISS is the differentiation of charged and neutral particles. While our TEPC can perform this differentiation, it also does so outside the shielding of the ISS. The result is a more accurate prediction of the ambient radiation dose.

In the picture above, the circled gold cylinder is the ISS’s IV-TEPC.

The NEUDOSE mission’s TEPC design - capable of ionizing vs non-ionizing radiation differentiation.

Apollo 11 Anniversary - Radiation

On this day 50 years ago, a landmark of human achievement occurred when Neil Armstrong and Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin set foot on the lunar surface. However a danger present to all, including Michael Collins in lunar orbit, was the very real threat of radiation exposure. En route to the moon, the crew needed to go through the upper and lower Van Allens belts, doughnut shaped belts around the Earth filled with captured radiation trapped within the Earth’s magnetic field. Even after passing the Van Allen Belts, the crew was vulnerable to unpredictable solar flares.

Each crew member carried a Personal Radiation Dosimeter that detected the amount of radiation they were exposed to. Surprisingly, the Apollo 11 crew received one of the least amounts of radiation in the Apollo missions. The crew got very lucky that no major event occurred during and they were routed safely around the more dangerous parts of the Van Allen belts.

A major concern for future manned space missions is radiation exposure, especially when considering a mission to Mars. The NEUDOSE mission aims to shine more light on the nature of ionizing radiation on the human body. Our team hopes that one day we will look back on the first manned mission to Mars in the same way we reflect on the success of Apollo 11 today.

Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin on the lunar surface on Apollo 11

Personal Radiation Dosimeter (PRD) worn by Apollo astronauts

Canadian Inventions

It’s Canada Day weekend and we like to reflect on the influence Canadians have had in Space. There have been many Canadian heroes that have spent time in space, in the ground station, and in the design room. The NEUDOSE mission team aims to join the roster of great influential Canadian inventions.

The Canadarm: The first Canadian space invention most citizens think of - the robotic arm has had significant influence on operations on the ISS. With 2 generations, the Canadarm is still operational to this day.

Space Greenhouse: University of Guelph’s Mike Dixon and his team have developed 14 hypobaric chambers to study the effects of atmospheric pressure on plant growth.

Apollo landing gear: The legs of the lunar modules that brought the first men to the moon were developed by Quebec’s Heroux-DEVTEK . The light-weight aluminum legs made sure the landing was sufficient to allow Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin to leave the module.

The Spherical TEPC

The CNP-TEPC is the main differentiator in the NEUDOSE mission from other CubeSat projects. The instrument reacts differently in ionizing vs non-ionizing radiation. It does this with a combination of the 2 cooperating technologies. The Spherical TEPC (pictured below), which is filled with enriched propane gas to model a human cell , is fabricated using the most recent techniques developed by NASA. It has a wall made of electrically conductive tissue-equivalent plastic.

When this instrument reacts with radiation, an electrical current is triggered through the anode wire sticking out of the poles. If at the same time a reaction occurs in the surrounding Anti-Coincidence Detector (ACD), we will know that we have received charged radiation. If we do not, then it is simply just neutral or non-ionizing radiation. The CNP-TEPC is the primary science payload and is currently being designed to be small enough so it can also potentially fit on the Extravehicular backpack carried by astronauts during spacewalks.

Opportunity has passed

On February 13, NASA had declared the Opportunity rover had officially ceased communication. Opportunity was deployed in 2003 and was anticipated to operate for 90 days, but has remained functional for a record 15 years. Opportunity’s mission was to analyze Martian soil for traces of water, of which it has confirmed is present. The mission results validate and encourage our desire to explore the red planet.

Our NEUDOSE mission seeks to ensure that humanity will be able to perform safer space travel, with a more advanced knowledge of the effects of solar radiation on humans outside our Earth’s protective magnetosphere. Our CNP-TEPC (Charged and Neutral Particle - Tissue Equivalent Proportional Counter) instrument allows us to distinguish between ionized and non-ionized radiation and to estimate doses received during space travel.

https://www.cnet.com/news/nasa-history-making-mars-rover-opportunity-declared-dead/

CNP-TEPC Instrument reacting to radiation

Total Eclipse of the Moon

Tonight, the Total Lunar Eclipse will be visible in Hamilton. A lunar eclipse, when the Earth casts a shadow on the moon, is quite a rare event and Totality will not be visible in Hamilton again until May 2022. The moon turns a red colour once the Earth fully blocks the sun. Similar to the ring we see during an annular solar eclipse, the moon sees a bright red ring around the Earth. This ring is red due to the contents of our atmosphere. Volcanic activity is also capable of influencing the appearance of the moon during an eclipse and can make it significantly darker.

For more information and a live animation of tonight’s total lunar eclipse, visit this link.