Deep space environment and shielding

Mission scenarios outside the Earth's protective magnetic shield are being studied. Included are high usage assets in the near-Earth environment for casual trips, for research, for commercial and for operational platforms, in which career exposures will be multimission determined over the astronaut's lifetime. In addition, the exploration beyond these near Earth operational platforms will include single missions of long duration to planets, asteroids, and planetary satellites. The interplanetary environment is evaluated using convective diffusion theory. Local induced environments for each celestial body are modeled by using results from recent targeted spacecraft studies, and integrated into the design environments. Design scenarios are then evaluated for these missions. The underlying assumptions in deriving the model environments and their impact on mission exposures with various shield materials will be discussed.