The space environment is not suitable for human life due to the lack of some components, e.g. oxygen and water, and the ionizing radiation, energy and particles, coming from the explosions on the stars surface. The astronauts living on the International Space Station (ISS) are undergoing an amount of that radiation because of the Earth geomagnetic shielding and the ISS hull. The possibility of measuring the background radiation on a Space Mission is thought to be useful for future mission designs.

UTBI is the name of the project of the students from the Universidad de Valencia which consists on sending a Gamma and X ray detector to the ISS.

 

The experiment has two significant but different purposes: on one hand, its main goal is to provide a technology demonstrator of one of the Space Missions in which the University of Valencia is involved, ASIM. The main scientific aim is to measure the background radiation in a Space Mission, specifically the radiation inside the International Space Station.

• Technological demonstrator: we are going to use, for first time, a Solid State CdZnTe Detector in the ISS. These detectors will be flown on the future external payload of the European Columbus Modules, ASIM.
• Physical and Life Science: The principal goal is the measurement of the radiation on board the ISS. With these data, it will be possible to predict the effects of radiation on the astronauts.

As we know the composition of the ISS module hull, we would like to give some useful experimental data of the background radiation on the ISS. This background radiation measurement will allow the people involved in ASIM project to determine the instrument performances.