Astronauts on the International Space Station are protected by Hungarian equipment

The Hungarian made detectors, which will measure the radiation astronauts are exposed to, arrived to the ISS on Tuesday, hvg.hu reported.

On 15 December the Soyuz TMA-19M spacecraft was successfully launched from Baikonur, Kazakhstan, and reached the International Space Station (ISS) carrying equipment among its cargo that were made in Hungary.

The equipment were developed in Hungary; they don’t need any energy supplies, and are part of the ESA DOSIS-3D experiment. The detectors will be brought back to Earth after a six months period of evaluation, the Ministry of National Development (NFM) said on Wednesday.

The Russian Yuri Ivanovich Malenchenko, the American Timothy Kopra, and the British Timothy Peake, members of Expedition 46/47, were also on board. The radiation astronauts are exposed to in space is much higher than on the Earth, that’s why it has to be measured regularly. The dosimeters, developed by Hungarians, will measure the radiation as part of a European-Hungarian, and Russian-Hungarian cooperation.

The SPD-12A detector package, which was on board of the Russian Progress M-29M supply ship sent to the ISS on 1 October 2014, consisted of similar Hungarian detectors. The Pille dosimeter functions on the ISS since 2003 as part of the on-board service system, along with passive dosimeters. A new reader is being made and tested. It’s supported by the Hungarian Ministry of National Development (NFM), and it’s planned to be sent to the ISS in the middle of 2016.