Status and calibration results of Liulin-5 charged particle telescope designed for radiation measurements in a human phantom onboard the International Space Station

Abstract

This is a report on the status of the particle telescope Liulin-5 developed for investigation of the radiation environment dynamics within the Russian spherical tissue-equivalent phantom on the International Space Station (ISS). Liulin-5 experiment will be a part of the international project MATROSHKA-R on ISS and is planned to start in 2007. Its aim is a long-term investigation of the depth–dose distribution in the phantom, mounted in the Russian Segment of ISS. The instrument is capable of simultaneously measuring energy deposition spectra, linear energy transfer (LET) spectra, flux and dose rates for electrons, protons and heavy charged particles at different depths of the phantom’s radial channel. Dose equivalent rate will be calculated from the absorbed dose rate multiplied by quality factor Q(LET). We present the inter-calibration results of the Liulin-5 instrument exposure to heavy ions, at the National Institute of Radiological Sciences (NIRS), Chiba, Japan that was done as part of the ICHIBAN project. The inter-comparison with the radiation dosimeters and spectrometers resulted in definition of the sensitive volumes of the instrument’s silicon detectors as well as estimations of the LET range of the Liulin-5 instrument.