AMS - Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer on the International Space Station

The Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) is a particle physics detector designed to measure charged cosmic ray spectra up to the TeV region, with high-energy photon detection capability up to a few hundred GeV. After the successful precursor flight on STS-91 in 1998 the detector was redesigned (AMS-02) to operate for 3 years on the International Space Station (ISS). With its large acceptance, the long flight duration and its state-of-the-art particle identification techniques, AMS-02 will increase substantially the sensitivity on antimatter and dark matter searches. In addition, AMS-02 will provide measurements of cosmic ray fluxes with unprecedentedly large statistics and over a wide kinematic range. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.