The National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) human space exploration programs are focused on leading safe, innovative, and sustainable efforts with commercial and international partners to enable human expansion across the solar system and to bring back to Earth new knowledge and opportunities. From space exploration programs in low-Earth orbit (LEO), such as the International Space Station (ISS), to lunar exploration programs, such as Artemis, the ultimate goal is to gain knowledge and develop the necessary technology required to explore and potentially inhabit other planets, such as Mars.
For human exploration missions, crew safety is a priority. There is a multitude of health risks associated with the space environment, ranging from microgravity and radiation effects on the human body to long-term isolation impacts. When it comes to space radiation, both ionizing and non-ionizing radiation (NIR) exposures above pre-established limits can cause detrimental biological effects. The main NIR sources of interest for crew protection include lasers, natural and artificial incoherent light sources (e.g., sunlight, LEDs, lamps, etc.) and radiofrequency emitters (e.g., antennas, RFID, etc.). With the technology advancements over the last decades, stronger lasers and radio antennas are now available to use for routine operations (e.g., space communications, vehicle docking, etc.). The NASA Safety program at the Johnson Space Center (JSC) uses agency developed standards and risk specific developed requirements by the agency’s subject matter experts (SMEs) for all human space flight programs: International Space Station (ISS), Commercial Crew (CC), Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle (MPCV), Artemis, Gateway station, Human Landing System (HLS), Commercial LEO destinations (Axiom), Exploration Extravehicular Mobility unit (xEMU).
The need for dedicated requirements for each of the human spaceflight risks is dictated by the unique challenges associated with space operations that often result in specific safety procedures and novel risk mitigation techniques. The requirements are developed in-house at the JSC by the discipline SMEs, approved by the NASA Health Medical Technical Authority (HMTA) office and concurred by the NASA Safety and NASA’s International Partners. Therefore, the safety process requires a proactive, flexible, and highly adaptive risk management approach for lasers and other NIR sourcesthat is unique to spaceflight compared tomore traditional terrestrialsafety processes.
This presentation will provide an overview of the ionizing and non-ionizing radiation safety process for human spaceflight, with focus on laser safety. NASA requirements process, risk mitigation strategies and challenges for safe operational implementation will be discussed.