In preparation for future human habitats on Mars, it is important to understand the Martian radiation environment. Mars does not have an intrinsic magnetic field and Galactic cosmic ray (GCR) particles may directly propagate through and interact with its atmosphere before reaching the surface and subsurface of Mars. However, Mars has many high mountains and low‐altitude craters where the atmospheric thickness can be more than 10 times different from one another. We thus consider the influence of the atmospheric depths on the Martian radiation levels including the absorbed dose, dose equivalent and body effective dose rates induced by GCRs at varying heights above and below the Martian surface. The state‐of‐the‐art Atmospheric Radiation Interaction Simulator based on GEometry And Tracking Monte Carlo method has been employed for simulating particle interactions with the Martian atmosphere and terrain. We find that higher surface pressures can effectively reduce the heavy ion contribution to the radiation, especially the biologically weighted radiation quantity. However, enhanced shielding (both by the atmosphere and the subsurface material) can considerably enhance the production of secondary neutrons which contribute significantly to the effective dose. In fact, both neutron flux and effective dose peak at around 30 cm below the surface. This is a critical concern when using the Martian surface material to mitigate radiation risks. Based on the calculated effective dose, we finally estimate some optimized shielding depths, under different surface pressures (corresponding to different altitudes) and various heliospheric modulation conditions. This may serve for designing future Martian habitats.

Sending astronauts to Mars will be a milestone of future deep space exploration activities. However, energetic particle radiation in deep space and in the Mars environment is a major risk to the health of future human explorers. The nominal Martian surface radiation field contains primary Galactic Cosmic Ray (GCR) particles and secondary particles generated in the Martian atmosphere and the regolith. Some of these secondary particles may propagate upward and even be detected at the orbit of Mars contributing to the orbit radiation. Studying the Mars orbit radiation environment is critical for planning future Mars orbital missions. Therefore, we calculate the Martian orbit radiation dose rate considering the primary GCR spectra provided by the Badhwar-O’Neill 2014 model and the secondary particles modeled by the state-of-the-art Atmospheric Radiation Interaction Simulator. Specifically, we calculate the integral dose rate of each particle type and its dependence on orbit height, surface pressure, and solar modulation intensity. Our analysis shows that modulation intensity is the most dominating factor and that different surface pressures make less than a 1% impact. We also derive the sensitive energy range of detected particles contributing to the dose rate and further validate our prediction against the measured data by Liulin-MO on TGO at a circular orbit around Mars. This may conduce to predicting the radiation risks in Mars orbit and providing constructive reference parameters for the crewed space industry.

On 28 October 2021, solar eruptions caused intense and long‐lasting solar energetic particle (SEP) flux enhancements observed by spacecraft located over a wide longitudinal range in the heliosphere. SEPs arriving at Earth caused the 73rd ground level enhancement (GLE) event recorded by ground‐based neutron monitors. In particular, this is also the first GLE event seen on the surface of three planetary bodies, Earth, Moon, and Mars, by particle and radiation detectors as shown in this study. We derive the event‐integrated proton spectrum from measurements by near‐Earth spacecraft and predict the lunar and martian surface radiation levels using particle transport models. Event doses at the lunar and martian surfaces of previous GLE events are also modeled and compared with the current event. This statistical and comparative study advances our understanding of potential radiation risks induced by extreme SEP events for future human explorations of the Moon and Mars.

For future missions exploring the Mars, radiation may pose one of the most hazardous consequences for astronauts' health not only during the mission, but also afterward (Cucinotta & Durante, 2006;Huff et al., 2016). Astronauts may encounter two types of primary radiation and their induced secondaries during their journey to and on the surface of Mars: one is background Galactic Cosmic Rays (GCRs) and the other is sporadic Solar Energetic Particles (SEPs). GCRs originate from outside the solar system and are charged particles with high energy and high penetrating ability, so it is difficult to effectively shield against GCRs .

Solar Energetic Particles (SEP) are one of the major sources of the martian radiation environment. It is important to understand the SEP-induced martian radiation environment for future human habitats on Mars. Due to the lack of global intrinsic magnetic field, SEPs can directly propagate through and interact with its atmosphere before reaching the surface and subsurface of Mars. Since Mars has many high mountains and low-altitude craters where the atmospheric thickness can be more than 10 times different from one another, the SEP-resulted surface radiation level may be very different from one location to another. We thus consider the influence of the atmospheric depths on the martian radiation levels including the absorbed dose, dose equivalent, and (human-)body effective dose induced by SEPs at varying heights above and below the martian surface. The state-of-the-art Atmospheric Radiation Interaction Simulator based on GEometry And Tracking Monte-Carlo method (AtRIS/GEANT4) has been employed for simulating particle interactions with the martian atmosphere and terrain. We find that even the thinnest martian atmosphere reduces radiation dose from that in deep space by at least 65\%, and the shielding effect increases for denser atmosphere. Furthermore, we present a method to quickly forecast the SEP-induced radiation in different regions of Mars with different surface pressures.