Tuesday, August 10, 2010

NASA Invites Media to Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer Arrival

Interesting instrument to launch on the last scheduled space shuttle.
- LRK -

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http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2010/aug/HQ_M10-111_AMS_Event.html
MEDIA ADVISORY : M10-111

NASA Invites Media to Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer Arrival

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- NASA will host a media event at 10:30 a.m. EDT on Thursday, Aug. 26, at the agency's Kennedy Space Center in Florida for the arrival of the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS). The state-of-the-art device to further our understanding of the universe will launch to the International Space Station during the last scheduled space shuttle flight next year.

The AMS will arrive for processing at Kennedy's Shuttle Landing Facility at 11 a.m. aboard an Air Force C-5 aircraft. The instrument, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), is a particle physics detector constructed, tested and operated by an international team representing 16 countries.

During the media event, reporters will have an opportunity to speak with AMS' principal investigator, Nobel Prize-winning physicist Samuel Ting of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Mark Sistilli, NASA's program manager for AMS. Other members of the international AMS team, flight processing project managers, DOE staff and European Space Agency officials, whose facilities were used in testing the experiment, also will be available for interviews.

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The AMS instrument has a lot of international interest and participation.
- LRK -

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http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/science/experiments/AMS-02.html
Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer - 02 (AMS-02)     07.23.10

Brief Summary

The Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer - 02 (AMS-02) seeks to understand fundamental issues on the origin and structure of the universe.
Principal Investigator

# Spokesperson: Samuel Ting, Ph.D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA
# Deputy Spokesperson: Roberto Battiston, Prof., INFN and University of Perugia, Italy

Co-Investigator(s)/Collaborator(s)

# Qiuliang Wang, Prof., Academia Sinica, Institute of Electrical Engineering (IEE), Beijing, China 
# He-Sheng Chen, Prof., Academia Sinica, Institute of High Energy Physics, Beijing, China
# Qinghao Ye, Prof., Jiao Tong University, Department of Physics, Shanghai, China
# Lin Cheng, Prof., Shandong University, Tsinan, China
# Junzhou Luo, Prof., Southeast University, Nanjing, China
# Zhenhui He, Prof., Sun Yat-Sen University, School of Physics and Engineering, Guangzhou, China
# Dong-Chul Son, Prof., Ewha Women's University, Seoul, Korea
# Shih-Chang Lee, Prof., Academia Sinica, Institute of Physics, Taipei, Taiwan
# Yuan-Hann Chang, Prof., National Central University (NCU), Taipei, Taiwan
# Ari Mujunen, Prof., Helsinki University of Technology, Metsähovi Radio Observatory, Kylmala, Finland
# Timo Eronen, Prof., University of Turku, Space Research Laboratory, Turku, Finland
# Silvie Rosier, Ph.D., Institut National de Physique Nucléaire et de
Physique des Particules (IN2P3), Laboratoire d'Annecy-le-Vieux de Physique des Particules (LAPP), Annecy-Le-Vieux, France
# Laurent Derome, Prof., Universite Joseph Fourier (Grenoble 1), Laboratoire de Physique Subatomique et de Cosmologie (LPSC), Grenoble, France
# Agnieszka Jacholkowski, Prof., Université Montpellier II, Laboratoire de Physique Theorique & Astroparticules (LPTA), Montpellier, France
# Stefan Schael, Prof., Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hochschule (RWTH), I. Physikalisches Institut (B), Aachen, Germany
# Wim De Boer, Prof., Karlsruhe Institut fur Technologie (KIT), Universität Karlsruhe, Karlsruhe, Germany
# Andrea Contin, Prof., Sezione INFN and Dipartimento di Fisica, Università degli Studi di Bologna, Bologna, Italy
# Guido Castellini, Istituto di Ricerca sulle Onde Elettromagnetiche, IROE, CNR, Firenze, Italy
# Pier-Giorgio Rancoita, Ph.D., Sezione INFN and Dipartimento di Fisica, Universita degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca, Milano, Italy
# Bruna Bertucci, Prof., Sezione INFN and Dipartimento di Fisica, Universita degli Studi di Perugia, Perugia, Italy
# Marco Incagli, Ph.D., Sezione INFN and Dipartimento di Fisica, Universita degli Studi di Pisa, Pisa, Italy
# Bruno Borgia, Prof., Sezione INFN and Dipartimento di Fisica, Universita degli Studi di Roma 'La Sapienza', Roma, Italy
# Piersimone Marrocchesi, Prof., Dipartimento di Fisica, Universita degli Studi di Siena, Siena, Italy
# Johannes Van Es, Ph.D., Nationaal Lucht- en Ruimtevaartlaboratorium (NLR), Emmeloord, Netherlands
# Fernando Barao, Prof., Laboratorio de Instrumentacao e Fisica Experimental de Particulas (LIP), Lisbon, Portugal
# Ramon Garcia Lopez, Prof., Institute of Astrophysics of the Canary Islands (IAC), La Laguna, Spain
# Martin Pohl, Prof., Departement de Physique, Université de Genève, Geneve, Switzerland
# Manuel Aguilar-Benitez, Prof., Centro de Investigaciones Energeticas Medioambientales y Tecnologicas (CIEMAT), Madrid, Spain
# Andre Rubbia, Prof., Eidgenossische Technische Hochschule Zurich (ETHZ), Zurich, Switzerland
# Eun Suk Seo, Prof., University of Maryland, Institute for Physical Science and Technology (IPST), College Park, MD
# Jack Sandweiss, Prof., Yale University, Physics Department, New Haven, CT
# Arturo Menchaca-Rocha, Prof., Universidad Nacional Autonoma (UNAM), Instituto de Ciencias Nucleares, Mexico City, Mexico

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Description

The Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS-02) is a state-of-the-art particle physics detector constructed, tested and operated by an international team composed of 60 institutes from 16 countries and organized under United States Department of Energy (DOE) sponsorship. The AMS-02 will use the unique environment of space to advance knowledge of the universe and lead to the understanding of the universe's origin by searching for antimatter, dark matter and measuring cosmic rays.

Experimental evidence indicates that our Galaxy is made of matter; however, there are more than 100 hundred million galaxies in the universe and the Big Bang theory of the origin of the universe requires equal amounts of matter and antimatter. Theories that explain this apparent asymmetry violate other measurements. Whether or not there is significant antimatter is one of the fundamental questions of the origin and nature of the universe. Any observations of an antihelium nucleus would provide evidence for the existence of antimatter. In 1999, AMS-01 established a new upper limit of 10-6 for the antihelium/helium flux ratio in the universe. AMS-02 will search with a sensitivity of 10-9, an improvement of three orders of magnitude, sufficient to reach the edge of the expanding universe and resolve the issue definitively.

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[Note: much more information about instrument and participants at the link above.  - LRK -]
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More info on AMS 02
- LRK -
 
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http://ams.cern.ch/
AMS 02

 An experiment to search in space for dark matter, missing matter & antimatter on the international space station.  Manifested on shuttle flight UF 4.1 to the ISS ("Interim Assy Seq Rev F")

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http://www.ams02.org/
The Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS-02) is a state-of-the-art particle physics detector designed to operate as an external module on the International Space Station. It will use the unique environment of space to study the universe and its origin by searching for antimatter, dark matter while performing precision measurements of cosmic rays composition and flux. The AMS-02 observations will help answering fundamental questions, such as "What makes up the universe's invisible mass?" or "What did happen to the primordial antimatter?"

WELCOME!
April 9th, 2010

The Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer Team welcomes you to the new AMS-02 website.   We are an international group of scientists, from 16 countries and 3 continents, working together since 15 years at one of the most complex scientific instruments ever built to be operated in space. One hundred years after the discovery of Victor Hess of an energetic radiation coming from the depth of space, the “cosmic rays”, AMS-02 will study its composition with an accuracy never obtained before, close to 1 part in 10 billions and up to an energy equivalent to thousands of times the mass of the proton. Operating on the International Space Station (ISS) for more than 10 years, starting in 2010, the goals of this experiment are to search for ultra rare or new types of matter, to extend by orders of magnitude the sensitivity to the existence of nuclear antimatter as well to understand the origin of dark matter, the dominating but mysterious form of matter in our universe.
(read more http://www.ams02.org/2010/04/welcome/)

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Hmmm, ..... AMS0-02 is a state-of-the-art experiment pursuing ambitious scientific goals. However, it is also the unique story of 15 years of effort of more than 600 scientists and engineers, from senior professors to undergraduate students, coming from 56 institutes from 16 nations distributed on 3 continents. ....

I wonder what you could do if you had that kind of dedication to setting up an observatory on our lunar neighbor?  Just wondering, I really don't think we have been there and done that!!!
- LRK -

One more hmmmm.  Like a number of missions, there have been delays in being launched and changes in configuration.  One really has to be dedicated to a cause to bring about a positive result when you are in a real world situation.  The ability to adapt and hold to a future vision is something that the human spirit is good at.  Take a look at the Wikipedia link and you will see what I am talking about.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha_Magnetic_Spectrometer

"Make it so"
http://www.archaeology.org/0101/newsbriefs/cleopatra.html
;-)


Thanks for looking up with me.
- LRK -

Web Site: http://lkellogg.vttoth.com/LarryRussellKellogg/
BlogSpot: http://kelloggserialreports.blogspot.com/

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WHAT THE MIND CAN CONCEIVE, AND BELIEVE, IT WILL ACHIEVE - LRK

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