14 DAY TRIAL // Media from all over Europe are invited by the ESA to Kennedy Space Center in Florida, on August 26th to have a look at the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, the next experiment to fly to the International Space Station.
The Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) is the largest instrument to ever been installed on the ISS and also the biggest cryogenically cooled superconducting magnet that was ever used in orbit.
One of the most exciting instruments that was ever built is about to seriously boost up our knowledge concerning the composition of the Universe, once NASA's Space Shuttle will deliver it safely to the Space Station.
The media representatives are expected to the Space Shuttle Landing Facility and they will have the opportunity to observe the hardware and talk to the project's scientists and managers, while the AMS is being unloaded.
This enormous project is a successful collaboration between institutes from France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Portugal and Switzerland, to which Russia, China, Taiwan and the United States took part.
Overall, 56 institutes from 16 countries formed the project's team and on August 26th, Simonetta Di Pippo, ESA Director of Human Spaceflight, and Prof. Sam Ting, the leader of the experiment from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, will be available for interviews with the press.
The AMS will search for signs of matter and antimatter and will gather huge amount of information about stars and galaxies million of light years away from our Milky Way, data that will hopefully help us to better understand the structure and the origin of the Universe.
Simonetta Di Pippo says that “Europe contributed to the design and development of AMS to a large extent and the mission will be even more special to Europeans as a ESA astronaut, Roberto Vittori, will be flying on an opportunity provided by the Italian space agency, ASI.
“We are going through exciting times and we move from one accomplishment to the other - the best way to pave the way to ISS extended operations through 2020 and beyond.”
For viewing the video follow the downloading link