NASA - STS-134 Mission patch / CERN - European Organization for Nuclear Research logo.
July 22, 2012
The astronauts who flew the last mission of space shuttle Endeavour landed Sunday, July 22 in Geneva. They do a turn scientific and tourist organized by CERN and supported among others by Geneva Airport. Commander Mark Kelly, pilot Gregory Johnson and mission specialists Roberto Vittori, Michael Fincke, Gregory Chamitoff and Andrew Feustel will include reliving their extraordinary mission to the public on July 24 at a conference open to all. Feet on the ground, head in the stars!
Image above: (From left): Astronaut Roberto Vittori of the European Space Agency, pilot Greg Johnson, Commander Mark Kelly, Mission Specialist Mike Fincke, Canadian astronaut Greg Chamitoff and Mission Specialist Drew Feustel .
The fact that these extraordinary men spend a few days in Geneva owes nothing to chance. Indeed, the space shuttle Endeavour, taking off May 16, 2011 from Cape Canaveral, carrying on board AMS, the hunter of dark matter and antimatter. Now what Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer - AMS), which mobilized over 15 years many top scientists including a Nobel Prize flight, was assembled at CERN in Geneva.
Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer - AMS-02
He was then led by a special convoy of 22 meters long at Geneva airport where a C5 Galaxy, only aircraft that can accommodate a load as big, had transported to Kennedy Space Center, Florida. Its size and special needs for its cargo had also required a long preparation and a very good coordination between the different partners of the airport platform.
Since then, the cosmic particle detector has been installed on the International Space Station ISS and returns its data space at CERN.
Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer - AMS-02 on ISS
Back from mission STS 134 astronauts will give a public lecture Tuesday, July 24th at 20:30 at the Theatre du Leman in Geneva.
Admission free, but registration is required: contact@fondationpourgeneve.ch
Orbiter.ch will attend this conference, a report of this conference will be published in this blog.
Related link:
NASA Science News: http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2009/14aug_ams/
Images, Text, Credits: Geneva Airport / Aline Yazgi / NASA / Translation: Orbiter.ch.
Greetings, Orbiter.ch
