AMS in the Clean Room

The Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, a $2 billion experiment to hunt for cosmic rays in space, stands in the clean room at the European physics lab CERN before it is shipped to NASA to be launched on a space shuttle.

An artist’s concept shows the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, a particle physics detector that is installed on the starboard truss of the International Space Station.

Technicians examine the $2 billion Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer instrument in a work stand ahead of its planned launch on NASA’s space shuttle Endeavour. The AMS instrument will search for cosmic rays from the International Space Station.

Back on August 25, 2010, workers loaded the AMS (inside the metal box at right) aboard a giant U.S. Air Force Galaxy jet for a flight from Geneva International Airport to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Endeavour shuttle commander Mark Kelly, left, and Nobel laureate Sam Ting (principal investigator for the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer) look over the instrument as it sits in a work stand at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida before its launch. Kelly commanded the STS-134 mission to take the AMS to the International Space Station in May 2011. The cutting edge instrument is the brainchild of Ting.

NASA’s space shuttle Endeavour heads to the launch pad for its final mission, STS-134, to transport AMS to the space station. Here Endeavour is shown bathed in bright xenon spotlights on March 10, 2011 at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Space shuttle Endeavour lifts off at 8:56 a.m. EDT on May 16 on its final flight – STS-134 – carrying AMS.

The Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer-2 (AMS) is seen in space shuttle Endeavour’s payload bay after the shuttle reached orbit. Shortly after this image was taken, the AMS was moved from the payload bay to the station’s starboard truss on May 19, 2011 (Flight Day 4).

The Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer is transferred out of the space shuttle Endeavour’s cargo bay by the shuttle’s robotic arm on May 19.

Read this article: