Study on superconducting magnetic shield for the manned long termed space voyages

The unique properties of superconductivity have facilitated many significant innovations of the 20th century in sectors like high energy physics, industrial machinery, medicine, defense, electrical power, etc. After the discovery of high Tc superconductors, many attempts have been driven to utilize high Tc superconducting materials in space science and technology. The superconducting magnetic shield is considered as one of the futuristic and visionary space applications of superconductivity which can certainly minimize the long-term health risk to the crews in a spacecraft due to the ceaseless exposure to galactic cosmic rays during the space expeditions. Although immensely restricted to the analytical models and simulations, in the past few years the efforts of applying superconducting magnets for radiation shielding have come a long way. In this study, a brief description of the shielding methods and the principle beneath the superconducting magnetic shield has been described. After that, noteworthy studies and investigations on the superconducting magnetic shield that took place within the past two decades with their key findings have been illustrated and assessed. Technological and physical constraints of these proposed shields are also briefly discussed.