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I heard that a dosimeter could be used to detect cosmic ray particles and estimate the radiation dose received by the devices onboard. In this way, one can determine the average amount of ionising dose received at that specific orbit (in the LEO).

My question is: How feasible is this idea as a secondary payload for an 1U CubeSar ?

Golden_Hawk
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  • Well, a TLD (thermoluminescent dosimeter) is a no-go since you can’t read it out. Perhaps look at degradation of response of specific devices. Pretty broad options with various trade offs. – Jon Custer Jan 29 '23 at 02:51
  • As @JonCuster: suggests, how would you get data from such a device? There are different types of dosimeters, what type were you thinking of using? – Fred Jan 29 '23 at 09:42

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A Geiger-Müller tube was payload of the Explorer 1 in 1958, the first satellite launched by the United States. So yes, the idea is feasible but a little bit old. Of course you will need a radio transmitter too.

Uwe
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  • Might be fairly easy to just count output pulses and send back the total count as part of a downlink data stream. Temperature, battery status, Geiger counts, ... – Jon Custer Jan 30 '23 at 19:03