INTEGRAL Radiation Environment Monitor (IREM)

Developed and manufactured by:

OERLIKON-CONTRAVES SPACE in cooperation with the PAUL SCHERRER INSTITUT (PSI) under a development contract of the EUROPEAN SPACE AGENCY (ESA)

The Integral Radiation Environment Monitor (IREM) performs a wide range of radiation monitoring functions in-orbit, and downloads the results via the Integral spacecraft telemetry to the ground.

The IREM data are part of the spacecraft "housekeeping" stream and, as such, are made available to all users via the ISDC.

The design of the IREM is based on that of the Standard Radiation Environment Monitor (SREM), which is designed as a standard equipment compatible with all common spacecraft interfaces and mission constraints. The main difference between the IREM and other SREMs is the small interface box between the IREM instrument and the Integral spacecraft. Other missions/experiments that in future will fly one or more SREM units are:

International Space Station ISS

PROBA

Additionally, the possibility of including an SREM in some or all of the following projects is at this point investigated:

Rosetta

Smart-1

Mars Express

FIRST/Planck

Mercury Orbiter

Further details of the current design can be accessed here:

Accomodation of the IREM on-board Integral (16 kbyte TIFF image)

Paul Scherrer Institute SREM pages

Scientific topics to be addressed by the IREM:

The IREM unit measures energetic electrons, protons, and heavy ions, as well as the total accumulated dose, encountered during the mission. This information is made available in real time to the other experimenters onboard the Integral satellite and, in due course, implemented as a part of the overall SREM measurement data base at the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI), Switzerland, together with data from SREM units on other missions. Up to now the SREMs have allowed to accumulate valuable new results concerning e.g. flux directionality, electron belt dynamism, and seasonal changes.

Back to Payload