In-flight performance of SilEye-2 experiment and cosmic ray abundances inside the Mir space station

Abstract

Cosmic ray measurements performed with the instrument SilEye-2 on Mir space station are presented. SilEye-2 is a silicon detector telescope for the study of the causes of Light Flashes perception by astronauts. As a standalone device, it monitors in the short and long term the radiation composition inside Mir. The cosmic ray detector consists of an array of 6 active silicon strip detectors which allow nuclear identification of cosmic rays up to Iron. The device was operational for more than 1000 hours in the years 1998-2000, measuring also several Solar Particle Events. In this work we present the in-flight performance of the instrument and nuclear abundance data from Boron to Silicon above ≃ 150 MeV/n inside

Effects of heavy ions on visual function and electrophysiology of rodents: the ALTEA-MICE project

“…Early human studies in accelerators (Charman et al, 1971;Tobias et al, 1971;Charman and Rowlands, 1971;McAulay, 1971;McNulty, 1971;McNulty et al, 1972;Budinger et al, 1972;McNulty et al, 1978) and experiments performed by our group in the MIR space station (SiEyel; SiEye2) suggest a correlation with increased particle flux in the eye and complementary mechanisms related to heavy nuclei and protons (Bidoli et al, 2001;Avdeev et al, 2002;Casolino et al, 2003). Charged particles interacting with the retina are the suggested physical cause of this perception.…”

Ion rates in the International Space Station during the December 2006 Solar Particle Event

“…The device, which is the development of our previous detectors [5,6], was designed in the framework of the ALTEA program [7] which aims at monitoring the radiation environment inside the ISS and investigating its effects on the brain function of the astronauts. We present here a characterization of the radiation environment inside the ISS (USLab) during the SPE events occurred between December 5 th and December 14 th 2006.…”

Two Years of Flight of the Pamela Experiment: Results and Perspectives

“…Other research on board Mir and International Space Station has involved the measurement of the radiation environment, the nuclear abundances and the investigation of the Light Flash 5) phenomenon with the Sileye experiments. 6,7) PAMELA is the largest and most complex device built insofar by the collaboration, with the broadest scientific goals. In this work we describe the detector and its performance in the first two years of operations.…”