Background radiation effects and hazards in planetary instrumentation
Recent and proposed future planetary missions are becoming increasingly concerned with detailed geochemical assessment, often in a bid to ascertain the presence of water and life supporting geochemical systems. The instruments involved may use some kind of radioactive source, e.g. X-ray fluorescence spectrometry, Mossbauer spectrometry, neutron scattering. Having radioactive sources on a lander/rover poses various potential problems, in regard to both safety to personnel involved in the building of the instrument and to radiation effects on spacecraft structure and on other instruments. Indeed background radiation effects from one instrument may dominate measurements in another resulting in…
The THESEUS space mission concept: science case, design and expected performances
THESEUS is a space mission concept aimed at exploiting Gamma-Ray Bursts for investigating the early Universe and at providing a substantial advancement of multi-messenger and time-domain astrophysics. These goals will be achieved through a unique combination of instruments allowing GRB and X-ray transient detection over a broad field of view (more than 1sr) with 0.5¿1 arcmin localization, an energy band extending from several MeV down to 0.3¿keV and high sensitivity to transient sources in the soft X-ray domain, as well as on-board prompt (few minutes) follow-up with a 0.7¿m class IR telescope with both imaging and spectroscopic capabilities. THESEUS will be perfectly suited for addressing …