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6 February, 2020
ESA astronaut Luca Parmitano has left the International Space Station after a six-month stay during which he contributed to repairing on the AMS experiment
Image above: ESA astronaut Luca Parmitano (middle) and NASA astronaut Drew Morgan (left) during their fourth spacewalk to service the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS). Image Credit: ESA.
The voyage of ESA astronaut Luca Parmitano and his colleagues Alexander Skvortsov and Christina Koch aboard the International Space Station (ISS) ended this morning, as their capsule touched down just after 10 a.m. (CET) in Kazakhstan. Over the course of his six months on board the ISS (including four months as its commander), Luca Parmitano and his colleague Andrew Morgan of NASA carried out four spacewalks to maintain and repair the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS-02). Assembled at CERN by an international team of scientists, the detector was installed on the ISS in 2011 and has since collected valuable cosmic-ray data.
The repairs carried out by Luca Parmitano and Andrew Morgan will extend the lifetime of the experiment, which is searching for dark matter and antimatter, to match that of the space station itself. In particular, during four difficult spacewalks, the two astronauts replaced the cooling system, which is essential to the operation of the cosmic-particle detector.
Watch our video on the spacewalk programme and the work carried out at CERN by scientists from the AMS collaboration in close contact with the astronauts:
Note:
CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, is one of the world’s largest and most respected centres for scientific research. Its business is fundamental physics, finding out what the Universe is made of and how it works. At CERN, the world’s largest and most complex scientific instruments are used to study the basic constituents of matter — the fundamental particles. By studying what happens when these particles collide, physicists learn about the laws of Nature.
The instruments used at CERN are particle accelerators and detectors. Accelerators boost beams of particles to high energies before they are made to collide with each other or with stationary targets. Detectors observe and record the results of these collisions.
Founded in 1954, the CERN Laboratory sits astride the Franco–Swiss border near Geneva. It was one of Europe’s first joint ventures and now has 23 Member States.
Related articles:
Astronauts Wrap Up Spacewalk Repair Job on Cosmic Ray Detector
http://orbiterchspacenews.blogspot.com/2020/01/astronauts-wrap-up-spacewalk-repair-job.html
Astronauts Wrap Up Third Spacewalk for Cosmic Particle Detector Repairs
https://orbiterchspacenews.blogspot.com/2019/12/astronauts-wrap-up-third-spacewalk-for.html
Spacewalkers Complete First Excursion to Repair Cosmic Particle Detector
https://orbiterchspacenews.blogspot.com/2019/11/spacewalkers-complete-first-excursion.html
A very good start
https://orbiterchspacenews.blogspot.com/2019/11/a-very-good-start.html
Related links:
Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS-02): https://home.cern/science/experiments/ams
International Space Station (ISS): https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/main/index.html
For more information about European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), Visit: https://home.cern/
Image (mentioned), Video (mentioned), Text, Credits: CERN/Thomas Hortala.
Best regards, Orbiter.ch
