AMS02 to Lift off Next July

AMS02 (the second stage project of the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer experiment) would take the American space shuttle STS-134 of "Endeavour" and lift off on 7:30 a. m. EDT, July 29th, 2010 in Kennedy Space Center, USA, announced Prof. Samuel Chao Chung Ting from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology recently at CERN, Geneva. It will head to the International Space Station for a three year mission.

AMS02 was developed by scientists from Institute of High Energy Physics, CAS in collaboration with their colleagues from the Chinese Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology (CALVT), Italy and France. It can measure electron and photon up to 1 TeV.

The electromagnetic calorimeter, known as the second stage project of The Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer experiment (AMS02) weighs 6,700 kilograms.

Superconducting Magnet and the Main Body of AMS02

At present, the assembling of AMS02 was completed. It will first undergo the beam test at CERN, and then the thermo vacuum test in simulated space environment at European Space Research and Technology Centre (ESTEC), Holland.

In early next year, AMS02 will be sent to Kennedy Space Center to be installed in the space shuttle. With the statistics accumulated within a short time right after lifting into the space, AMS02 will surpass the running PAMELA, for having more precise and broader measurement of the energy distribution of antiproton, positron and photon in outer space.

AMS02 will be employed to detect new physics phenomena and search for super symmetric particles for a very long time in the future.