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A year in orbit: ISS deployment tests radiation detectors for future space missions
The predawn darkness on a cool Florida night was shattered by the ignition of nine Merlin engines on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. The thrust of the engines shook the ground miles away. From a distance, the rocket appeared to slowly rise above the horizon. For the cargo onboard, the launch was anything but gentle, as the ignition of liquid oxygen generated more than 1.5 million pounds of force. After the rocket had been out of sight for several minutes, the booster dramatically returned to Earth with several sonic booms in a captivating show of engineering designed to make space travel less expensive and more sustainable.
Biao Zhang, Jinjia Cao, Shuang Lin, Yingming Song
Nuclear Technology | Volume 211 | Number 1 | January 2025 | Pages 1-12
Research Article | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2024.2312026
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The inverse distance weighting (IDW) interpolation algorithm is used to reconstruct the γ radiation field. The traditional IDW interpolation algorithm is improved. The power exponent of distance P in the IDW for each interpolation point is not fixed and varies from one point to the other point. A fitting expression of P is obtained, which is a function of the coordinates of each point and can minimize the interpolation error when the number of sampling points is specified. Afterward, the improved algorithm is used to reconstruct a γ radiation field of a single source, and the theoretic results are compared with the results from Geant4, yielding an average relative error of 7.50%. The interpolated results from the experimental measurements align well with the actual data, with an average relative error of only 0.12%. The P derived from the interpolated experimental measurement data shows an error of 2.0% compared to the power exponent obtained from the Geant4 data interpolation. Then we set up a double-source γ radiation scene experiment and measured the count rate data at the grid points. At the same time, the experiment scene was simulated by Geant4. The improved IDW algorithm could not reconstruct the double-source γ radiation field well, thus further improvement is needed.