About the author

Thomas Berger

Thomas Berger is a physicist and heads the Biophysics working group in the Radiation Biology department at the DLR Institute of Aerospace Medicine. Together with his colleagues, he develops, builds and flies radiation measuring instruments into space.

Berger is the Principal Investigator of DLR's MARE project, in which the measuring bodies Helga and Zohar will fly once around the Moon in 2022 on the first uncrewed flight of the Orion spacecraft as part of NASA's Artemis I mission. The experiment serves to measure the radiation exposure on the female body. For the first time, the Orion flight will collect gender-specific measurement data on space radiation outside the ISS orbit, which is needed to develop a radiation protection vest.

Posts from Thomas Berger

Space | 11. May 2022

MARE to the Moon – our M-42 radiation meter with a smart solution for saving power

The MARE experiment includes a set of 16 radiation measurement devices called M-42, which the Biophysics Working Group of the Radiation Biology Department at the DLR Institute of Aerospace Medicine developed, tested and now finally built for the NASA Artemis I mission. M-42 is an active radiation meter. This means that it needs to obtain power from somewhere for the radiation detector (a small silicon diode) and the associated measurement electronics, and for storing the resulting measurement data. read more

Space | 27. April 2022

Project MARE – to the Moon and back with Orion

In summer 2022, the time will finally have come – our Matroshka AstroRad Radiation Experiment (MARE) will fly to the Moon and back with NASA’s Artemis I mission. We have been working towards this moment for several years and have had to live with the fact that space projects are frequently delayed. We have also had to contend with the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. This presented us with new, major challenges when putting together the experiment. read more