New Crew Members, Including NASA Biologist, Launch to Space Station

ROSCOSMOS - Soyuz MS-01M Mission patch.

July 7, 2016

Image above: The Soyuz MS-01 spacecraft, carrying three Expedition 48-49 crew members, launches from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 9:36 p.m. EDT Wednesday, July 6, 2016 (7:36 a.m. Baikonur time, July 7). Image Credits: NASA/Bill Ingalls.

Three crew members representing the United States, Russia and Japan are on their way to the International Space Station after launching from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 9:36 p.m. EDT Wednesday, July 6 (7:36 a.m. Baikonur time, July 7).

New Crew Launches to the International Space Station

Kate Rubins of NASA, Soyuz Commander Anatoly Ivanishin of the Russian space agency Roscosmos and Takuya Onishi of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency are traveling in an upgraded Soyuz spacecraft. They’ll spend two days -- and 34 Earth orbits – testing modified systems before docking to the space station’s Rassvet module at 12:12 a.m. EDT Saturday, July 9.

NASA TV coverage of docking will begin at 11:30 p.m. Friday, July 8. Hatches are scheduled to open about 2:50 a.m. Saturday, July 9, with NASA TV coverage starting at 2:30 a.m.

The arrival of Rubins, Ivanishin and Onishi returns the station's crew complement to six. The three will join Expedition 48 Commander Jeff Williams of NASA and Flight Engineers Oleg Skripochka and Alexey Ovchinin of Roscosmos. The Expedition 48 crew members will spend four months conducting more than 250 science investigations in fields such as biology, Earth science, human research, physical sciences, and technology development.

Image above: Expedition 48-49 crew members Japanese astronaut Takuya Onishi of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), top, Kate Rubins of NASA, middle, and Russian cosmonaut Anatoly Ivanishin of Roscosmos wave farewell before boarding their Soyuz MS-01 spacecraft for launch Thursday, July 7, 2016, Baikonur, Kazakhstan. The trio will launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan the morning of July 7, Kazakh time (July 6 Eastern time.) All three will spend approximately four months on the orbital complex, returning to Earth in October. Image Credits: NASA/Bill Ingalls.

Rubins, who holds a bachelor’s degree in molecular biology and a doctorate in cancer biology, Ivanishin and Onishi are scheduled to remain aboard the station until late October. Williams, Skripochka and Ovchinin will return to Earth in September.

Expedition 48 crew members are expected to receive and install the station’s first international docking adapter, which will accommodate future arrivals of U.S. commercial crew spacecraft. Scheduled for delivery on SpaceX’s ninth commercial resupply mission (CRS-9) to the station, the new docking port features built-in systems for automated docking and uniform measurements. That means any spacecraft may use the adapters in the future – from NASA’s new crewed and uncrewed spacecraft, developed in partnership with private industry, to international spacecraft yet to be designed. The work by private companies to take on low-Earth orbit missions is expected to free up NASA's resources for future crewed missions into deep space, including the agency’s Journey to Mars, with the Orion crew capsule launching on the Space Launch System rocket.

Image above: Expedition 48-49 crewmembers Kate Rubins of NASA, Anatoly Ivanishin of Roscosmos and Takuya Onishi of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) launched Wednesday, July 6, 2016 to the International Space Station where they will spend approximately four months on the orbiting complex performing critical scientific research. Image Credits: NASA/Bill Ingalls.

Investigations arriving on SpaceX CRS-9 in July will test capabilities for sequencing DNA in space, regulating temperatures aboard spacecraft, understanding bone loss, and tracking ships around the world. Other investigations will study how to protect computers from radiation in space and test an efficient, three-dimensional solar cell.

The crew members also are scheduled to receive Orbital ATK’s sixth commercial resupply mission and two Russian Progress resupply flights delivering several tons of food, fuel, supplies and research. A Japanese cargo craft will deliver new lithium-ion batteries to replace the nickel-hydrogen batteries currently used on the station to store electrical energy generated by the station’s solar arrays.

For more than 15 years, humans have been living continuously aboard the International Space Station to advance scientific knowledge and demonstrate new technologies, making research breakthroughs not possible on Earth that also will enable long-duration human and robotic exploration into deep space. A truly global endeavor, more than 200 people from 18 countries have visited the unique microgravity laboratory that has hosted more than 1,900 research investigations from researchers in more than 95 countries.

Related links:

Expedition 48 crew: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/expeditions/expedition48/index.html

International docking adapter: http://www.nasa.gov/feature/meet-the-international-docking-adapter

SpaceX CRS-9: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/news/crs9_cargo

Check out the full NASA TV schedule and video streaming information at: http://www.nasa.gov/nasatv

Keep up with the International Space Station, and its research and crews, at: http://www.nasa.gov/station

Get breaking news, images and features from the station on Instagram and Twitter: http://instagram.com/iss and http://www.twitter.com/Space_Station 

Images (mentioned), Video, Text, Credits: NASA TV/NASA/Kathryn Hambleton/JSC/Dan Huot/Karen Northon.

Best regards, Orbiter.ch

3-D Simulations and NASA Supercomputer Help Further Discovery of the Origin of Stars

NASA logo.

July 6, 2016

What processes are involved in the formation of individual stars and stellar clusters in our own galaxy and other galaxies? Scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory are using NASA’s most powerful supercomputer, Pleiades, to create unique star-formation simulations to answer this fundamental scientific question.

Like something from a video game, the simulations zoom through the entire evolution of young star clusters. A giant cloud of interstellar gas and dust collapses under the forces of gravity. Inside the cloud, turbulent clumps of gas form and then collapse. The collapsed clumps form star clusters, and then the magnetized, swirling cores further evolve to form individual or small groups of stars.

Image above: This simulation captures a mix of radiation, magnetic fields, gravity and other physical phenomena. It was produced with UC Berkeley’s code and run on the Pleiades supercomputer at the NASA Advanced Supercomputing facility at NASA’s Ames Research Center. Image Credits: NASA Ames/David Ellsworth/Tim Sandstrom.

These complex simulations as seen here — which capture a mix of radiation, magnetic fields, gravity and other physical phenomena — were produced with UC Berkeley’s code and run on the Pleiades supercomputer, located at the NASA Advanced Supercomputing (NAS) facility at NASA's Ames Research Center in California's Silicon Valley. Currently ranked as the seventh most powerful system in the U.S., the Pleiades supercomputer was critical for obtaining the high-resolution results that match closely with observations from the Hubble Space Telescope and other observing telescopes. Scientists demonstrated the accuracy of the code by performing many independent tests of different elements of physics modeled against real known data.

The science team is enhancing the code to produce new simulations that will allow them to zoom in on the formation of stellar disks — pancake-shaped disks of gas and dust surrounding protostars that are believed to be the first stage of planet formation.

Reaching this goal will require even more computing power. The NAS facility is continuously growing its supercomputing capability to support even higher resolution star-formation simulations — plus hundreds of other NASA mission projects in aeronautics, Earth and space science and exploration of planets and the universe.

For more information about NAS and to view simulation video, visit:
http://www.nas.nasa.gov/publications/articles/feature_origin_of_stars_Klein.html

Related links:

NASA Advanced Supercomputing (NAS): http://www.nas.nasa.gov/

High-Tech Computing: https://www.nasa.gov/topics/technology/high-tech-computing/index.html

Ames Research Center: https://www.nasa.gov/centers/ames/home/index.html

Text, Credits: NASA/Kimberly Williams/Ames Research Center/Author: Jill Dunbar/mage Credits: NASA Ames/David Ellsworth/Tim Sandstrom.

Greetings, Orbiter.ch

Rapidly Intensifying Typhoon Examined By NASA's GPM, RapidScat

NASA & JAXA - Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) logo / NASA - ISS-RapidScat Mission logo.

July 6, 2016

Nepartak (NW Pacific Ocean)

NASA looked at winds and rainfall within the first typhoon of the Northwestern Pacific 2016 hurricane season called Nepartak as it continued to intensify. On July 6, Nepartak strengthened into a super typhoon.

Graphic above: On July 5, RapidScat measured Nepartak's wind speeds near or above 30 meters per second (67 mph/108 kph) around the center of the storm. Graphic Credits: NASA JPL/Doug Tyler.

NASA's RapidScat instrument measured winds around the system while NASA-JAXA's Global Precipitation Measurement or GPM core satellite analyzed rainfall rates with the typhoon.

Nepartak developed on July 3, 2016 south of Guam. Nepartak has moved to the west-northwest of Guam and has started to rapidly intensify. Warm water, low vertical wind shear and favorable outflow due an upper level trough are providing favorable environmental conditions for the typhoon.

The GPM core observatory satellite flew above Nepartak on July 4, 2016 at 2151 UTC (5:51 p.m. EDT) when the tropical cyclone was still classified as a tropical storm. GPM's Microwave Imager (GMI) and Dual-Frequency Precipitation Radar (DPR) data showed that Nepartak was very close to forming an eye at that time. Very powerful storms near the center of Nepartak's circulation were found to be dropping rain at a rate of over 193 mm (7.6 inches) per hour.

Image above: The GPM core observatory satellite flew above Nepartak on July 4 at 2151 UTC (5:51 p.m. EDT) and saw powerful storms near the center dropping rain at a rate of over 193 mm (7.6 inches) per hour. Image Credits: NASA/JAXA/SSAI, Hal Pierce.

GPM radar sliced through Nepartak and measured the 3-D vertical structure of very tall thunderstorm towers near the center of the intensifying tropical storm. These tall thunderstorms called "hot towers" were found to reach heights of 17.0 km (about 10.5 miles). These powerful storms near the center of a tropical cyclone are often seen prior to intensification. Energy released by rainfall into the center of a tropical cyclone provides the energy upon which tropical cyclones thrive.

On July 5, NASA's RapidScat instrument measured Nepartak's wind speeds near or above 30 meters per second (67 mph/108 kph) around the center of the storm as the storm continued to strengthen. RapidScat measures winds on the surface of the ocean from its platform on the International Space Station.

Nepartak intensified over the next two days as it tracked under very warm sea surface temperatures, encountered very little wind shear and had good outflow of air at the top of the tropical cyclone.

Typhoon Warnings are in effect in Taiwan for Hualien and Taitung Counties. Hualien County is the largest county in Taiwan and is located on the mountainous eastern coast. Taitung county is south of Hualien County on the east coast. For updated warnings, visit Taiwan's Central Weather Bureau website at: http://www.cwb.gov.tw/eng/.

Rapidly Intensifying Typhoon Examined By NASA's GPM

Video above: The GPM core observatory satellite flew above Nepartak on July 4 at 2151 UTC (5:51 p.m. EDT). GPM identified very tall thunderstorm towers near the center of the intensifying tropical storm. These tall thunderstorms called "hot towers" were found to reach heights of 17.0 km (about 10.5 miles). Those storms were dropping rain at a rate of over 193 mm (7.6 inches) per hour. Video Credits: NASA/JAXA/SSAI, Hal Pierce.

On July 7 at 1500 UTC (11 a.m. EDT) Super Typhoon Nepartak's maximum sustained winds had increased to 150 knots (172.6 mph/ 277.8 kph), making it a Category 5 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Scale. Nepartak was located approximately 509 nautical miles southeast of Taipei, Taiwan, near 19.8 north latitude and 127.7 east longitude. The storm was moving to the west-northwest at 18 knots (20.7 mph/33.3 kph). Napartak is generating wave heights to 48 feet (14.6 meters).

Because Nepartak entered the eastern edge of the Philippine Atmospheric Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration or PAGASA's forecast coverage boundaries PAGASA has designated the storm as "Butchoy." PAGASA always assigns tropical cyclones local names to storms.

The Joint Typhoon Warning Center forecast expects Nepartak to move northwest and gradually weaken beginning July 7. The cyclone is forecast to approach Taiwan.

Related links:

NASA - ISS-RapidScat: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/iss-rapidscat/

For more information about GPM, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/gpm and http://global.jaxa.jp/projects/sat/gpm/topics.html

Image (mentioned), Gtaphic (mentioned), Video (mentioned), Text, Credits: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/Rob Gutro/Hal Pierce.

Greetings, Orbiter.ch

Hitomi Mission Charts Hot Winds of a Galaxy Cluster for the First Time

NASA - Goddard Space Flight Center logo.

July 6, 2016

Measurements of unprecedented detail returned by Japan's Hitomi satellite have allowed scientists to track the motion of X-ray-emitting gas at the heart of the Perseus cluster of galaxies for the first time. The results showcase the long-awaited premiere of a next-generation X-ray instrument whose key components were developed at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

Hitomi Measures Perseus Galaxy Cluster's X-ray Winds

Video above: A revolutionary instrument aboard the ill-fated Hitomi satellite returned the most detailed measurements yet made of the million-degree atmosphere at the core of a galaxy cluster. Watch the video to learn more. Video Credits: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.

Led by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), Hitomi was launched on Feb. 17. Following the successful activation of the observatory and instruments, Hitomi suffered a mission-ending spacecraft anomaly on March 26.

Before its demise, though, Hitomi was able to peer into the Perseus cluster of galaxies, an assemblage of thousands of galaxies bound together by gravity. Located about 240 million light-years away and named for its host constellation, the Perseus galaxy cluster contains a vast amount of extremely hot gas. At temperatures averaging 90 million degrees Fahrenheit (50 million degrees Celsius), the gas glows brightly in X-rays. Prior to Hitomi's launch, astronomers lacked the capability to measure the detailed dynamics of this gas, particularly its relationship to bubbles of gas expelled by an active supermassive black hole in the cluster's core galaxy, NGC 1275.

"For the first time, we have mapped the motion of the X-ray-emitting gas in a cluster of galaxies and determined its velocity structure over a wide range of spatial scales," said Goddard's Richard Kelley, the U.S. principal investigator for the Hitomi collaboration. "Although this gas is continually stirred by fast outflows from the central black hole, its velocities are small on astronomical scales and show evidence for only minor levels of turbulence."

Image above: The Perseus galaxy cluster is filled with hot X-ray-emitting gas, as seen in this image from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory. Astronomers using the Soft X-ray Spectrometer aboard the Hitomi satellite have, for the first time, mapped the motion of this gas and determined its velocity structure across a large part of the cluster. The square overlay, which spans about 195,000 light-years at the cluster's distance, shows the area observed by Hitomi. Colors correspond to the detected gas speeds, with bluer colors indicating faster motion toward Earth and redder colors showing greater velocities in the opposite direction. Image Credits: NASA Goddard and NASA/CXC/SAO/E. Bulbul, et al.

Hitomi's revolutionary Soft X-ray Spectrometer (SXS), developed and built by Goddard scientists working closely with colleagues from several institutions in the United States, Japan, and the Netherlands, spent more than two and a half days observing a wide area in the cluster's core. The resulting X-ray spectrum, which provides 30 times the detail of the best previous observation, unveiled a rich landscape of X-ray emission lines from iron, nickel, chromium, and manganese -- metals forged in billions of massive stars in the cluster's galaxies and dispersed when they exploded as supernovae.

The SXS studied a square patch of the sky measuring about 195,000 light-years on a side at the cluster's distance. The total range of gas velocities directed toward or away from Earth within this square was found to be about 365,000 miles an hour (590,000 kilometers per hour) -- enormous by human standards but surprisingly modest on cosmic scales. The observed velocity range indicates that turbulence is responsible for only about 4 percent of the total gas pressure. This result is of particular interest to astrophysicists. Turbulent pressure was a previously unmeasured quantity that could significantly impact estimates of the cluster's mass. The SXS measurements show that only minor corrections are needed.

"I'm surprised the hot gas is absorbing the power output of the black hole so quickly, so efficiently. The gas is relatively stable and isn’t getting pushed around as much as we thought," said team member Brian McNamara, a professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Waterloo in Ontario. "Hitomi's Perseus observation tells us that we can probably weigh distant galaxy clusters to greater accuracy than we can weigh our own Milky Way galaxy."

Image above: In visible light, the core of the Perseus galaxy cluster looks completely different. The cluster gas so prominent at X-ray wavelengths gives way to a clutch of fuzzy galaxies viewed through a scrim of faint stars in our own. This image shows the same sky area as the Chandra image above. The bizarre object at the center is NGC 1275, the cluster's central galaxy and itself a prominent source of X-ray and radio emission. At the galaxy's core lies a supermassive black hole activated by infalling matter. Glowing filaments extending from the galaxy trace bubbles of gas blown violently outward by the black hole. Despite this activity, Hitomi measurements show that hot cluster gas in the vicinity is moving at cosmically modest speeds. Image Credits: R. Jay GaBany.

A paper from the Hitomi collaboration details these findings in the July 7 edition of the journal Nature.

To determine motion at cosmic scales, astronomers typically disperse light into a rainbow-like spectrum. Discrete bright or dark lines in the spectrum correspond to wavelengths characteristically emitted or absorbed by specific chemical elements. For gas moving away from or toward Earth, these lines will be displaced toward the red or blue end of the spectrum, respectively, by an amount depending on the gas speed. Gas motion may also blur or broaden these lines, providing another clue to the cluster's environment.   

Hitomi's SXS employed a revolutionary approach for measuring X-ray "colors" called microcalorimetry. The technique produces unprecedented spectral resolution without blurring the spectrum when looking at sources occupying a relatively large part of the sky, which occurs with traditional methods. The SXS microcalorimeter measured heat produced when individual particles of light, called photons, struck the detector. This resulted in a tiny temperature increase that precisely determined the energy of the incident X-ray light.

During the SXS check-out phase, a door in its line of sight remained closed to protect the microcalorimeter from potential contaminants as materials aboard the spacecraft emitted residual gas into the vacuum of space. This door was designed to transmit X-rays at a reduced level, but it necessarily absorbed some lower-energy X-rays before they could reach the detector.

Image above: The Hitomi spacecraft, then known as ASTRO-H, as it appeared on Nov. 27, 2015, at Tsukuba Space Center in Japan. The open compartment visible at the spacecraft's lower left houses the Soft X-ray Spectrometer. Image Credit: JAXA.

"The SXS, a technological marvel, worked spectacularly well, exceeding its performance goal despite being partially obstructed," said co-author Robert Petre, chief of Goddard's X-ray Astrophysics Laboratory and the U.S. project scientist for Hitomi.

The Perseus observation provides a tantalizing glimpse of the tremendous advance that X-ray microcalorimetry will bring to astrophysics. U.S. researchers pioneered development of the technology in the 1980s, but Hitomi's all-too-brief run represents its most successful space application to date.  

"This is the first time we've looked at a galaxy cluster with an instrument capable of resolving the components of various atomic emission lines, and we immediately saw contradictions with current models," said team member Maxim Markevitch at Goddard. "This is a long-awaited tool for diagnosing the conditions in cosmic plasmas that we can finally apply to galaxy clusters, and there will be a number of papers to come based on these data."
Hitomi, which translates to "pupil of the eye," was known before launch as ASTRO-H. The mission was developed by the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science, a division of JAXA. It was built jointly by an international collaboration led by JAXA, with contributions from NASA Goddard and other institutions in the U.S., Japan, Canada and Europe.

Related links:

Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA): http://global.jaxa.jp/

Institute of Space and Astronautical Science: http://www.isas.jaxa.jp/e/index.shtml

Journal Nature paper "Hitomi" on July 7 edition: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v535/n7610/full/nature18627.html

For more information about Hitomi, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/hitomi

Images (mentioned), Video (mentioned), Text, Credits: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/Francis Reddy/Ashley Morrow.

Greetings, Orbiter.ch

Curiosity Rover Enters Precautionary Safe Mode

NASA - Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) logo.

July 6, 2016

The team operating NASA's Curiosity Mars rover is taking steps to return the rover to full activity following a precautionary stand-down over the Fourth of July weekend.

Curiosity is now communicating with ground controllers and is stable. The rover put itself into safe mode on July 2, ceasing most activities other than keeping itself healthy and following a prescribed sequence for resuming communications.

Engineers are working to determine the cause of safe-mode entry. Preliminary information indicates an unexpected mismatch between camera software and data-processing software in the main computer. The near-term steps toward resuming full activities begin with requesting more diagnostic information from Curiosity.

Image above: This May 11, 2016, self-portrait of NASA's Curiosity Mars rover shows the vehicle at the "Okoruso" drilling site on lower Mount Sharp's "Naukluft Plateau." The scene is a mosaic of multiple images taken with the arm-mounted Mars Hands Lens Imager (MAHLI). Image Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS.

Curiosity has entered safe mode three times previously, all during 2013.

The rover landed in Mars' Gale Crater in August 2012. During its first year on Mars, the mission achieved its goal by determining that, more than 3 billion years ago, the region offered fresh-water lakes and rivers with environmental conditions well-suited to supporting microbial life, if life has ever existed on Mars. In continuing investigations, the mission is learning more about the ancient wet environments and how and when they evolved to drier and less habitable conditions.

NASA last week approved an additional two-year extension, beginning Oct. 1, 2016, for the Mars Science Laboratory Project, which developed and operates Curiosity.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, manages the project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. JPL is a division of Caltech in Pasadena. For more information about Curiosity, visit: http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/

Image (mentioned), Text, Credits: NASA/Tony Greicius/JPL/Guy Webster.

Greetings, Orbiter.ch

Launch Day Arrives for Three Expedition 48-49 Crew Members

ISS - Expedition 48 Mission patch.

July 6, 2016

At the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, NASA astronaut Kate Rubins, cosmonaut Anatoly Ivanishin of the Russian space agency Roscosmos, and astronaut Takuya Onishi of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) are preparing for launch to the International Space Station. They are scheduled to lift off in a Soyuz spacecraft today at 9:36 p.m. EDT (7:36 a.m. Baikonur time, July 7). All three will spend approximately four months on the orbital complex, returning to Earth in October.

Live launch coverage will begin at 8:30 p.m. EDT on NASA Television and the agency’s website. For the NASA TV schedule and where to watch live and replays, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/

Image above: (From left) Expedition 48-49 crew members Kate Rubins, Anatoly Ivanishin and Takuya Onishi pose for a group photograph following the crew press conference at the Cosmonaut Hotel in Baikonur, Kazakhstan. Photo Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls.

The three will join Expedition 48 Commander Jeff Williams of NASA and Flight Engineers Oleg Skripochka and Alexey Ovchinin of Roscosmos. The Expedition 48 crew members will spend four months contributing to more than 250 experiments in fields such as biology, Earth science, human research, physical sciences and technology development.

NASA TV coverage will begin at 11:30 p.m. Friday, July 8 for docking to the space station’s Rassvet module at 12:12 a.m. Saturday, July 9. Hatches are scheduled to open about 2:50 a.m. Saturday, July 9, with NASA TV coverage resuming at 2:30 a.m.

Related links:

International Space Station (ISS): https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/main/index.html

ISS Expedition 48:
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/expeditions/expedition48/index.html

Related article:

Next Station Crew Arrives at Launch Site
http://orbiterchspacenews.blogspot.ch/2016/06/next-station-crew-arrives-at-launch-site.html

Image (mentioned), Text, Credits: NASA/Mark Garcia.

Greetings, Orbiter.ch

New wings give ICARUS flight for second neutrino hunt

CERN - European Organization for Nuclear Research logo.

July 5, 2016

Image above: The ICARUS detector being refurbished at CERN in a clean room. (Image: Max Brice/CERN).

“Nothing is lost, everything is transformed”. This statement also applies to particle physics equipment, which is often reused for several projects. This is the case for ICARUS, a huge neutrino detector being refurbished at CERN.

ICARUS was used between 2010 and 2014 at the INFN Gran Sasso Laboratory in Italy to study neutrino oscillations using a beam of neutrinos produced at CERN (CNGS project, CERN Neutrinos to Gran Sasso). The 4-metre high, 20-metre long detector arrived at CERN 16 months ago and since then is undergoing a complete refurbishment. It will be then shipped to the United States to start a second life. It will be part of the Short Baseline Neutrino (SBN) programme at Fermilab, near Chicago, dedicated to the study of sterile neutrinos. Sterile neutrinos are a hypothetical type of neutrinos, called sterile because they don't interact with other particles in the same way the other three known types of neutrinos do. The hypothetical sterile neutrinos would only interact via gravity while the three known types of neutrinos also interact via the weak force.

The refurbishment is part of the CERN Neutrino Platform (CENF) project, started in 2014, to follow the recommendations of the European Strategy for Particle Physics, and it is done in collaboration with the INFN and Fermilab.

The ICARUS detector is a big box filled with liquid argon to which a high-voltage, electric field is applied: when a particle passes through it creates a wake of electrons that drift towards the walls where they are detected. Knowing the arrival time and the position of the drifted electrons, one can reconstruct a three-dimensional image of the event.

Timelapse rotation of the cryostat of ICARUS

Video above: The welding of the aluminium panels forming the cryostat is extremely delicate and needs to be done in a flat position. Therefore, the team has to rotate the entire pre-assembled cryostat like a giant roaster. This process will take several months, at the end of which the cryostat is ready to host the detector. (By Maximilien Brice/CERN).

The renovation campaign at CERN includes replacing many parts of this original detector, as well as the construction of a brand-new cryostat – the cold box containing the detector –  in aluminium.

When the cryostat will be ready it has to be moved out of its current building, brought in front of the clean room where the detector is, and the two parts will be assembled. The overhaul should last until the end of 2016. At the beginning of 2017, an exceptional load transport will carry it all the way to Fermilab to start its new adventure.

Read the full article about ICARUS refurbishment: http://home.cern/cern-people/updates/2016/06/new-wings-give-icarus-flight-second-neutrino-hunt

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 21 Member States.

Related links:

CNGS project, CERN Neutrinos to Gran Sasso: http://home.cern/about/accelerators/cern-neutrinos-gran-sasso

Short Baseline Neutrino (SBN): http://sbn-nd.fnal.gov/

CERN Neutrino Platform (CENF): http://home.cern/about/experiments/cern-neutrino-platform

For more information about the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), visit: http://home.web.cern.ch/

Image (mentioned), Video (mentioned), Text, Credits: CERN/Stefania Pandolfi.

Best regards, Orbiter.ch