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Saturday, 9 April 2011

Van Allen radiation belt

The Van Allen radiation belt is a torus of energetic charged particles (plasma) around Earth, which is held in place by Earth's magnetic field.

This belt is one of the main reasons for soviets  to abandon their manned moon mission during the cold war.
A SPACE VEHICLE requires at-least 6 feet of lead shielding to protect the crew from intense radiation

some satellites have to shut down its sensors when passing thru this belt 

The belts are a hazard for artificial satellites and also difficult and expensive to shield against.
HiVOLT      
  refer the hivolt link, a possible way of draining electron flux of the inner belt