Continuous and progressive bone loss is a major health hazard in prolonged manned-space flight. Internal body organs, especially the heart, lungs, and blood vessels of brain, also experience complicated adaptations to weightlessness. Therefore, systematic research is necessary to understand these adaptations and to identify possible countermeasures. An accurate, fully automated, dual-energy, digital, flash x-ray imaging system will be developed for the quantitative monitoring of bone mineral content (BMC) and for anatomical imaging of the internal body organs of humans or animals in space. A recently developed, large format (8" x 11"), integrated, amorphous-silicon, photodiode array is used with most efficient scintillators (CsI(Tl) and BGO) for energy-selective, x-ray image detection. The novel x-ray imager is designed to have its key imaging quality parameters comparable with those of computed radiography. The imager has an accuracy of better than 1 percent in BMC determination and can ensure distinctive separation of bone and internal body organs for monitoring physiological change under weightless conditions. A compact, flash x-ray source with microsecond pulse-width, synchronized with the selected action of the imaged objects, will precisely find the imaged object without requiring the immobilization of animals in space vehicles.
Potential Commercial Applications:This device can be used in the clinical diagnosis of osteoporosis and in portable x-ray imaging.
