Space News and Facts Newsletter #53
May 15 - May 21, 2022
Helga and Zohar are going to the Moon this year! Helga, though, won't be as lucky as Zohar because she won't get to wear a specially designed vest for protection against radiation.
Relax. Helga and Zohar are both female mannequins designed expressly for the purpose of radiation measurements. It all falls under the "Matroshka AstroRad Radiation Experiment" (aka "MARE"). It is planned that both ladies will be sent to the Moon on NASA's first Artemis mission hopefully sometime in 2022.
The MARE was designed at the German Aerospace Center ("DLR") in Cologne. (FYI: The German Aerospace Center in the German language is known as "Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt" and is abbreviated as "DLR". ) DLR is the German Space Agency. Other partners include the Israeli Space Agency, Israeli Tech company, StemRad, and, of course, NASA itself.
For the six-week trip to the Moon and back, Helga and Zohar are decked out with thousands of sensors and 34 radiation detectors. The mannequins are made from materials designed to mimic human bones, tissues, and organs. They aren't full height, though; only the torso and head are parts of the experiment. (No legs.) The mannequins are assembled from 38 discs stacked 95 cm high. The reason two female mannequins are being used is that female astronauts, apparently, are more sensitive to radiation than males.
StemRad is the actual manufacturer of the radiation vest. Radiation protection, as you can tell from their name, is what they do. The vest is called "AstroRad".
Here is the info about MARE from the DLR website (in English):
Article link: MARE – Radiation exposure on a journey to the Moon
Aerospace Testing International Magazine showing time-lapse of Zohar moon mannequin's assembly.
NASA is open to the idea of private companies licensing its technology. They call this their "Technology Transfer" program, aka the "T2" program. In fact, their patent portfolio of more than 1,200 technologies is made available for searching, and they provide a step-by-step guide to getting a license.
Licenses fall into one of three basic categories: