The Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, in the grasp of the International Space Station's robot arm, closes in on its new home on the orbiting science laboratory. Photo Credit/NASA TV
Endeavour’s astronauts hoisted the $2 billion Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer aboard the International Space Station early Thursday, handing the orbiting science laboratory its most far reaching science experiment yet.
The four hour operation required two pairs of astronauts using the shuttle and the station’s robot arms.
Endeavour docked with the station on Wednesday, two days after lifting off on a 16-day mission to the station with the 15,000 pound particle detector and an equally massive collection of spare parts for the orbital outpost.
“Thank you very much for the great ride and the delivery of the AMS,” Samuel Ting, the Nobel Laureate and MIT physicist who serves as the AMS lead scientist, told Endeavour Mark Kelly and his crew. “Your support and fantastic work have taken us one step closer to realizing the scientific potential of the AMS. With your help, AMS on station will provide us a better understanding of the origins of the universe.”
Ting’s efforts to get the detector into orbit began 16 years ago. More than 600 physicists from 16 countries joined the effort led by the U. S. Department of Energy. The researchers hope the detector will confirm the presence of primordial antimatter, dark matter and possible other high energy particles that are careening through the universe.
The confirmation and characterization of antimatter would be especially significant evidence in support of the big bang theory. According to the theory, the massive explosion should have created equal amounts of the ordinary matter we see all around us as well as matter comprised of similar particles bearing the opposite electrical charge.
An artist's conception of the AMS at home on the space station's long solar power system truss. Image Credit/NASA
Across the universe, astronomers can see evidence for dark matter in the gravitational behavior of large star systems. Though dark matter may comprise 90 percent of the universe, scientists do not understand its composition.
Meanwhile, NASA mission managers and their Debris Assessment Team are studying three damage sites on the heat shielding tiles beneath Endeavour’s right wing.
The damage was spotted in the photography of the shuttle’s underside taken by space station astronauts as Endeavour approached to dock on Wednesday.
Mission managers might ask the Endeavour crew to take a closer look on Saturday.
“We have seen this kind of stuff before, and it’s not too big of a concern for us,” Endeavour commander Mark Kelly told an interviewer early Thursday.
LeRoy Cain, NASA’s Mission Management Team chairman, also tempered concerns as he explained the findings on Wednesday.
“At this point, we don’t have any reason for concern or alarm,” Cain told a news briefing.
Meanwhile, the Endeavour crew will embark on the first of four spacewalks outside the station on Friday.
Spacewalkers Drew Feustel and Greg Chamitoff will retrieve and deploy external science experiments and set up a wireless communications system among other tasks.