Spacecraft and radiation protection
Spacecraft, both manned and unmanned, must cope with the high radiation environment of outerspace. Space radiation produced by the Sun and other galactic sources, and trapped in radiation "belts" is more dangerous and hundreds of times more intense than radiation sources such as medical X-rays or normal cosmic radiation usually experienced on Earth.[11]When the intensely ionizing particles found in space strike human tissue, it can result in cell damage and may eventually lead to cancer.
The usual method for radiation protection is material shielding by spacecraft and equipment structures (usually aluminium), possibly augmented by polyethylene in human spaceflight where the main concern is high energy protons and cosmic ray ions. On unmanned spacecraft in high electron dose environments such as Jupiter missions, or medium Earth orbit (MEO), additional shielding with materials of a high atomic number can be effective.