Traveling 15 times farther into space than the International Space Station (ISS), NASA's #Orion spacecraft soared beyond the radiation protection offered by Earth’s atmosphere and magnetic field. In fact, the majority of EFT-1 took place inside the Van Allen Belts, areas of heavy radiation that surround Earth. No spacecraft built for humans has passed through the Van Allen Belts since the Apollo missions, and even those only passed through the belts – they didn’t linger. Future crews don’t plan to spend more time than necessary inside the Van Allen Belts, either, but long missions to deep space will expose them to more radiation than astronauts have ever dealt with before. EFT-1’s passage through the Van Allen Belts offered a unique opportunity to see how Orion’s shielding held up to it. Sensors recorded the peak radiation seen during the flight, as well as radiation levels throughout the flight, which can be mapped back to geographic hot spots. Pictured here, simulated Van Allen Bel...