Design of Magnetic Shielding from Space Radiation using Numerical Methods

Shielding the humans from space radiation is one of the most demanding challenges in manned space travel. The space radiation can be mitigated using passive and active shielding techniques. Passive shielding techniques use layers of materials which absorb the incoming radiation, while the active shielding techniques use electrical or magnetic fields to deflect the incoming radiation. This paper considers magnetic shielding which consists of a number of coils and forms a large magnetic field surrounding the spacecraft. The paper presents a numerical method of designing the configuration of the coils used in the magnetic shielding. The magnetic field of the coils is numerically evaluated using Biot-Savart law. The design parameters of the magnetic shielding are optimized w.r.t. the bending power of the generated magnetic field by using a random walk algorithm. The resulting optimal design of magnetic shielding is compared to reference design, i.e. the ‘pumpkin’ magnetic shielding design.