A Novel Configuration for Superconducting Space Radiation Shields

Long-time exposure to galactic cosmic rays is one of the most problematic threats for a manned mission in the deep space. In the last decades, several studies of active superconducting magnetic shields were performed leading to the proposals of apparently promising magnetic configurations. However, as the interaction of energetic particles with the materials composing the magnets was not taken into account, the contribution of secondary particles to the astronauts' radiation dose was neglected, and, consequently, the actual effectiveness of the shields was overestimated. In the frame of the EU-FP7-SR2S project, a study of superconducting space radiation shield was performed associating the optimization of the magnetic configuration with Monte-Carlo simulation of the dose reduction. It was found that most of the magnetic shields proposed in previous works are not adequate, and a novel configuration, transparent to radiation, was proposed based on toroids arranged with their axes perpendicular to the spacecraft axis. Compared to other shields with the same shielding power, such a configuration results in lower magnetic field at the superconductor and very light design.