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The 2020s is a very important decade in the space sector, where international cooperation is moving towards the exploration of the Moon and will lead to stable lunar settlements, which will require new, innovative, and efficient technologies. In this context, the project LOOPS–M (Lunar Operative Outpost for the Production and Storage of Microgreens) was created by students from Sapienza University of Rome with the objective of designing some of the main features of a lunar greenhouse. The project was developed for the IGLUNA 2021 campaign, an interdisciplinary platform coordinated by Space Innovation as part of the ESA Lab@ initiative. The LOOPS-M mission was successfully concluded during the Virtual Field Campaign that took place in July 2021. This project is a follow-up of the V-GELM Project, which took part in IGLUNA 2020 with the realization in Virtual Reality of a Lunar Greenhouse: a simulation of the main operations connected to the cultivation module, the HORT3 , which was already developed by ENEA (Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development) during the AMADEE-18 mission inside the HORTSPACE project. This paper will briefly describe the main features designed and developed for the lunar greenhouse and their simulation in a VR environment: an autonomous cultivation system able to handle the main cultivation tasks of the previous cultivation system, a bioconversion system that can recycle into new resources the cultivation waste with the use of insects as a biodegradation system, and a shield able of withstanding hypervelocity impacts and the harsh lunar environment. A wide overview of the main challenges faced, and lessons learned by the team to obtain these results, will be given. The first challenge was the initial inexperience that characterized all the team members, being for most the first experience with an activity structured as a space mission, starting with little to no know-how regarding the software and

A photodiode-based inexpensive detector working as counter and spectrometer for alpha particles, named Alphaino, is described and analyzed in depth. Prior to detector construction, Monte Carlo simulations by means of MCNPX ver. 2.7.0 code have been carried out to select the most suitable sensitive element for the intended applications. The detector has been tested for low-rate alpha-particle counting and spectroscopy, demonstrating a maximum achievable count rate of 4⋅103 s−1, with an energy resolution corresponding to a Full Width Half Maximum of 160keV over the entire energy range of measured alpha, namely 4−6.5 MeV, the intrinsic efficiency being 100%. Alphaino can be used for fast and qualitative analyses to radionuclides identification, and quantitative analyses when radionuclides monitored are characterized by well distinguished energy lines in spectra. Its applications will include 222Rn progeny monitoring by mechanical air sampling on a millipore filter, and disposable applications to qualitative measuring of potentially alpha-contaminated liquids (containing plutonium isotopes) by a droplet put on the photodiode itself, for a quick and cheap evaluation prior to initiate proper chemical treatments to classical alpha spectrometry by electrodeposition. Alphaino is completely open-source. The repository for the project is available on GITHUB at https://github.com/bemxgm/Radon-Monitor., QC 20190515

A photodiode-based inexpensive detector working as counter and spectrometer for alpha particles, named Alphaino, is described and analyzed in depth. Prior to detector construction, Monte Carlo simulations by means of MCNPX ver. 2.7.0 code have been carried out to select the most suitable sensitive element for the intended applications. The detector has been tested for low-rate alpha-particle counting and spectroscopy, demonstrating a maximum achievable count rate of 4⋅103 s−1, with an energy resolution corresponding to a Full Width Half Maximum of 160keV over the entire energy range of measured alpha, namely 4−6.5 MeV, the intrinsic efficiency being 100%. Alphaino can be used for fast and qualitative analyses to radionuclides identification, and quantitative analyses when radionuclides monitored are characterized by well distinguished energy lines in spectra. Its applications will include 222Rn progeny monitoring by mechanical air sampling on a millipore filter, and disposable applications to qualitative measuring of potentially alpha-contaminated liquids (containing plutonium isotopes) by a droplet put on the photodiode itself, for a quick and cheap evaluation prior to initiate proper chemical treatments to classical alpha spectrometry by electrodeposition. Alphaino is completely open-source. The repository for the project is available on GITHUB at https://github.com/bemxgm/Radon-Monitor., QC 20190515

A photodiode-based inexpensive detector working as counter and spectrometer for alpha particles, named Alphaino, is described and analyzed in depth. Prior to detector construction, Monte Carlo simulations by means of MCNPX ver. 2.7.0 code have been carried out to select the most suitable sensitive element for the intended applications. The detector has been tested for low-rate alpha-particle counting and spectroscopy, demonstrating a maximum achievable count rate of 4⋅103 s−1, with an energy resolution corresponding to a Full Width Half Maximum of 160keV over the entire energy range of measured alpha, namely 4−6.5 MeV, the intrinsic efficiency being 100%. Alphaino can be used for fast and qualitative analyses to radionuclides identification, and quantitative analyses when radionuclides monitored are characterized by well distinguished energy lines in spectra. Its applications will include 222Rn progeny monitoring by mechanical air sampling on a millipore filter, and disposable applications to qualitative measuring of potentially alpha-contaminated liquids (containing plutonium isotopes) by a droplet put on the photodiode itself, for a quick and cheap evaluation prior to initiate proper chemical treatments to classical alpha spectrometry by electrodeposition. Alphaino is completely open-source. The repository for the project is available on GITHUB at https://github.com/bemxgm/Radon-Monitor., QC 20190515

A photodiode-based inexpensive detector working as counter and spectrometer for alpha particles, named Alphaino, is described and analyzed in depth. Prior to detector construction, Monte Carlo simulations by means of MCNPX ver. 2.7.0 code have been carried out to select the most suitable sensitive element for the intended applications. The detector has been tested for low-rate alpha-particle counting and spectroscopy, demonstrating a maximum achievable count rate of 4⋅103 s−1, with an energy resolution corresponding to a Full Width Half Maximum of 160keV over the entire energy range of measured alpha, namely 4−6.5 MeV, the intrinsic efficiency being 100%. Alphaino can be used for fast and qualitative analyses to radionuclides identification, and quantitative analyses when radionuclides monitored are characterized by well distinguished energy lines in spectra. Its applications will include 222Rn progeny monitoring by mechanical air sampling on a millipore filter, and disposable applications to qualitative measuring of potentially alpha-contaminated liquids (containing plutonium isotopes) by a droplet put on the photodiode itself, for a quick and cheap evaluation prior to initiate proper chemical treatments to classical alpha spectrometry by electrodeposition. Alphaino is completely open-source. The repository for the project is available on GITHUB at https://github.com/bemxgm/Radon-Monitor., QC 20190515

A photodiode-based inexpensive detector working as counter and spectrometer for alpha particles, named Alphaino, is described and analyzed in depth. Prior to detector construction, Monte Carlo simulations by means of MCNPX ver. 2.7.0 code have been carried out to select the most suitable sensitive element for the intended applications. The detector has been tested for low-rate alpha-particle counting and spectroscopy, demonstrating a maximum achievable count rate of 4⋅103 s−1, with an energy resolution corresponding to a Full Width Half Maximum of 160keV over the entire energy range of measured alpha, namely 4−6.5 MeV, the intrinsic efficiency being 100%. Alphaino can be used for fast and qualitative analyses to radionuclides identification, and quantitative analyses when radionuclides monitored are characterized by well distinguished energy lines in spectra. Its applications will include 222Rn progeny monitoring by mechanical air sampling on a millipore filter, and disposable applications to qualitative measuring of potentially alpha-contaminated liquids (containing plutonium isotopes) by a droplet put on the photodiode itself, for a quick and cheap evaluation prior to initiate proper chemical treatments to classical alpha spectrometry by electrodeposition. Alphaino is completely open-source. The repository for the project is available on GITHUB at https://github.com/bemxgm/Radon-Monitor., QC 20190515