Author Topic: AMS-2 (Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer)  (Read 61375 times)

Offline Moe Grills

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AMS-2 (Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer)
« on: 05/16/2011 07:54 pm »
   I hope I'm not jumping the gun.
I'm confident that  Endeavour will successfully deliver this Alpha-Magnetic Spectrometer science package to the ISS.
Fingers crossed? Or knees bowed?
:)
Now about the AMS itself.
After it's attached to the space station, what precisely will it be looking
for?
I confess I'm no particle physicist; and there appears to be conflicting info on different sites.
1) It's either looking for high-speed alpha particles.
2) Or anti-matter particles.
3) Or "Dark Matter"?

I'll probably get humiliated here by my ignorance of particle physics;
oh well. :(  Everyone has to eat humble pie at one time or another.
« Last Edit: 05/18/2011 04:24 pm by Aobrien »

Offline AnalogMan

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Re: AMS-2 (Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer)
« Reply #1 on: 05/16/2011 08:14 pm »
This might be a good place to start:
http://www.ams02.org/

Offline rdale

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Re: AMS-2 (Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer)
« Reply #2 on: 05/16/2011 08:16 pm »
I _highly_ recommend going to the NASA Youtube or John44's archive site and grabbing the press conference from the first attempt. There was a very good explainer, with graphics and research, showing what AMS will do. Also Analog's post is perfect with their homepage.

Offline axmor61

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Re: AMS-2 (Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer)
« Reply #3 on: 05/16/2011 11:01 pm »
I have a question regarding the MLI that covers the AMS-02 top radiator. Will the MLI blanket with the lettering AMS be removed or is a permanent blanket?
Thanks.

Offline Space Pete

Re: AMS-2 (Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer)
« Reply #4 on: 05/16/2011 11:11 pm »
I have a question regarding the MLI that covers the AMS-02 top radiator. Will the MLI blanket with the lettering AMS be removed or is a permanent blanket?
Thanks.

It is a permanent blanket and won't be removed.
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Offline axmor61

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Re: AMS-2 (Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer)
« Reply #5 on: 05/17/2011 12:21 am »
Thank you Space Pete.

Offline Moe Grills

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Re: AMS-2 (Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer)
« Reply #6 on: 05/17/2011 07:26 pm »
I _highly_ recommend going to the NASA Youtube or John44's archive site and grabbing the press conference from the first attempt. There was a very good explainer, with graphics and research, showing what AMS will do. Also Analog's post is perfect with their homepage.

Thanks. Those are some interesting links and info.
I also hope for some serendipitous discoveries by such instruments.

Offline Aobrien

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Re: AMS-2 (Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer)
« Reply #7 on: 05/17/2011 07:50 pm »
Changing the title as you shouldn't start a thread saying that we need to start one. Next time please just use a regular title.
NSF L2=The Ultimate Space Passport

Offline Moe Grills

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Re: AMS-2 (Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer)
« Reply #8 on: 05/18/2011 05:25 pm »
Changing the title as you shouldn't start a thread saying that we need to start one. Next time please just use a regular title.

Good point. Thanks.

As for the AMS-2?
She has arrived at the ISS this morning.

Latest I have is is that she's still on schedule to be handed off arm to arm and installed on the station on Thursday.

Offline dsobin

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Re: AMS-2 (Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer)
« Reply #9 on: 05/19/2011 06:11 pm »
I've checked at the www.ams02.org website and I can't find any status info. The last post on their website says it will launch May 17, which is rather old news. They are using twitter, but the tweets are, of course, not very detailed.

Does anyone know of a better site which is posting more in-depth status of activation/checkout?

Thanks.

Offline rdale

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Re: AMS-2 (Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer)
« Reply #10 on: 05/19/2011 06:38 pm »
That would probably be the best spot. My guess is they are busy doing activation / checkout ;) Make sure you listen to today's presser with the early info.

Offline marsavian

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Offline Moe Grills

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Re: AMS-2 (Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer)
« Reply #12 on: 05/19/2011 11:32 pm »
   There are two websites I understand:
one for the general public; and one for professional scientists.
I'll see about posting the URL's

Yes! The AMS-2 is now permanently installed on an ISS truss.
It draws about 2500 Watts of power from the station's power supply
now. That's quite a lot.

  I also learned that the instrument will indeed be attempting to detect
antimatter particles, and maybe dark matter as well, if dark matter can be detected by these means.

 

Offline Moe Grills

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Re: AMS-2 (Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer)
« Reply #13 on: 05/19/2011 11:39 pm »

The AMS-2 website for professional scientists is
http://ams.cern.ch/

 For the general public, it's:
http://www.ams02.org/

Offline TheFallen

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Re: AMS-2 (Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer)
« Reply #14 on: 05/21/2011 10:54 pm »
Nice photo of AMS and starboard truss taken during EVA-1

http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/gallery/images/shuttle/sts-134/flightday05/ndxpage2.html
« Last Edit: 05/21/2011 10:56 pm by TheFallen »

Offline Space Pete

Re: AMS-2 (Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer)
« Reply #15 on: 05/22/2011 12:17 pm »
An update on where we stand with AMS data collection from today's (FD-7's) execute package:

Quote
AMS continues to operate on ISS nominally. Yesterday, AMS received ~50 million events and collected 90 Gb of data! This is more data than expected!

WOW! :o ;D
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Offline Moe Grills

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Re: AMS-2 (Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer)
« Reply #16 on: 05/27/2011 07:58 pm »
Nice photo of AMS and starboard truss taken during EVA-1

http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/gallery/images/shuttle/sts-134/flightday05/ndxpage2.html

I'd select that for photo of the week.     :)

Offline Space Pete

Re: AMS-2 (Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer)
« Reply #17 on: 06/18/2011 07:57 pm »
From ISS On-Orbit Status Report for 18/06/2011.

Weekly Science Update (Expedition Twenty-Seven/Twenty-Eight -- Week 12)

AMS-02 (Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer): Each day, AMS continues to collect about 100 Gigabytes of data from 40 million cosmic rays, over 2 Terabytes of data & 1 billion events to date. Temperatures good during high Beta owing to shading by port array. Thanks for power cycle.
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Offline AnalogMan

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Re: AMS-2 (Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer)
« Reply #18 on: 06/26/2011 09:38 am »
Update from the AMS website:

HAPPILY COLLECTING FROM THE CERN POCC
June 25th, 2011

Three hours after AMS-02 was installed on the International Space Station on may 19th, it get used to its new life in the Space and started detecting particles smoothly and continuously: at a rate of about 50 millions of cosmic rays/day it has already taken more than one billion of events! While the spectrometer was happily collecting particles in space, the AMS-02 team managed to transfer the Payload Operation Control Center (POCC) from JSC – Houston to a new building at CERN – Geneva.


Full article at http://www.ams02.org/2011/06/happily-collecting-data-from-the-cern-pocc/

Offline bobthemonkey

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Re: AMS-2 (Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer)
« Reply #19 on: 06/26/2011 08:27 pm »
Can anyone confirm that the ACOP system for AMS-02 didn't fly in the end (this was the onboard data recorder with 2xRAID1 arrays) and was instead replaced with nothing more than a Thinkpad with an extra HDD. This did fly, but I'm not sure if it was a replacement for ACOP, or in addition to.

Thanks.

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