Cosmic Radiation Exposure of Future Hypersonic Flight Missions

Abstract

Cosmic radiation exposure in air traffic grows with flight altitude, geographical latitude and flight time. For future high-speed intercontinental point-to-point travel, the trade-off between reduced flight time and enhanced dose rate at higher flight altitudes is investigated. Various representative (partly) hypersonic cruise missions are considered and in dependence on solar activity the integral route dose is calculated for envisaged flight profiles and trajectories. Our results are compared to those for corresponding air connections served by present day subsonic airliners. During solar maximum, we find a significant reduction in route dose for all considered high-speed missions compared to the subsonic reference. However, during solar minimum, comparable or somewhat larger doses result on transpolar trajectories with (partly) hypersonic cruise at Mach 5. Both solar activity and routing are hence found to determine, whether passengers can profit from shorter flight times in terms of radiation exposure, despite of altitude-induced higher dose rates. Yet, aircrews with fixed number of block hours are always subject to larger annual doses, which in the considered cases take values up to five times the reference. We comment on the implications of our results for route planning and aviation decision-making in the absence of radiation shielding solutions.

Cancer risks from cosmic radiation exposure in flight: A review

“…Future public travel will likely expand to include supersonic and suborbital passenger flight, each having its own challenges with respect to CIR exposure. It has been estimated that for supersonic flight, the benefits of decreased CIR exposure due to shorter flight times would outweigh the increased exposure at higher altitude ( 101 ). However, this exposure reduction can be offset by the need for transpolar routing and is dependent upon the state of the solar cycle.…”

Simulation of Cosmic Radiation Transport Inside Aircraft for Safety Applications

“…The second situation represents flights in the equatorial region (cut-off rigidity of 17 GV), in the solar maximum period (solar deceleration potential of 1700 MV), and in the same two preceding altitudes of flight; this situation minimizes the neutron fluence in the atmosphere. The 18 km altitude is well above the usual flight level for conventional aircraft, but it can be of interest to evaluate the operational ceiling for high-performance military aircraft and, also, may be an interesting preview for future hypersonic aircraft [22].…”

Comparative Analysis of the Aeronautical Certification Process Against Nonionizing Radiation and the Management Proposal for Ionizing Radiation

“…At these altitudes, the flow of this class of radiation is about three times greater than at the altitude of current commercial flights. These, in turn, have a flow 300 times greater than at ground level (Koops 2017).…”