ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Phys.
Sec. Space Physics
This article is part of the Research TopicVariability in the Solar Wind and its Impact on the Coupled Magnetosphere-Ionosphere-Thermosphere System, Volume IIView all 5 articles
Model Calculation of Charged Galactic Cosmic Ray Radiation Dose During a Flight to Mars
Provisionally accepted
- Harbin Institute of Technology, Shenzhen, Shenzhen, China
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The radiation exposure from galactic cosmic rays (GCRs) presents a significant challenge for human spaceflight to Mars. Lyu et al. (Space Weather 2024) estimated the GCR radiation dose rates around the lunar surface, using a GCR radiation dose calculation model. Although the modeling results generally agreed with spacecraft observation, they underestimated the observations in the year 2012 (indicated as underestimation of the model in 2012 hereafter). In this study, we employ the same model to estimate the GCR radiation dose rates during a Mars mission from the Earth. Using this model, we calculate the absorbed dose rates of GCRs during the flight to Mars and compare our results with observational data from the Mars Science Laboratory Radiation Assessment Detector (MSL-RAD) and computational results from the Badhwar-O'Neill (BON) GCR model. First, we compute the energy spectrum of GCRs during the Earth-to-Mars transit using the GCR modulation model. Then, using the fluence-to-dose conversion coefficients (FDCCs) from ICRP 123, the absorbed dose rates of 15 human organs/tissues during the Earth-to-Mars transit are calculated to represent the general absorbed dose rate of the body (in water). Furthermore, considering the contributions of different elements and the underestimation of the model in 2012, we calculate the total absorbed dose rates of charged GCRs in silicon during the flight. Our results generally align with the BON11 model (excluding pions) and are consistently ∼20% lower than the central value of the MSL-RAD/B observational data within expected uncertainties. This work may provide help for the future mission with radiation protection.
Keywords: Galactic cosmic rays, Radiation dose, Mars, Similation, Solar Activity
Received: 29 Sep 2025; Accepted: 19 Nov 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Lyu and Qin. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Gang Qin, qingang@hit.edu.cn
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