Launch of Space Shuttle Endeavour (source: www.nasa.gov)

After resolving conces surrounding an auxiliary power unit heater that scrubbed an initial take-off plan on April 29, NASA’s space shuttle Endeavour successfully launched from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, USA on May 16 at 12:56 UTC. Since this is Endeavour’s last planned mission, dubbed STS-134, the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS-02) in the orbiter’s payload bay has attracted much global attention. And in the development of the AMS-02, the NARL’s National Space Organization (NSPO) has made a significant contribution by conducting the thermal vacuum tests of its individual components. 

The AMS-02 is a state-of-the-art particle physics detector designed to operate as an exteal module on the International Space Station (ISS). As deployed in the ISS, it will use the unique space environment to study the universe and its origin by searching for antimatter and dark matter while performing precision measurement of charged cosmic ray composition and flux for the following decade. The AMS-02 observations will help answering fundamental questions, such as "What makes up the universe's invisible mass?" or "What did happen to the primordial antimatter?"

The AMS-02 is an international collaboration experiment that associates more than 600 scientists in 56 scientific institutions from 16 different countries under the direction of American Physics Nobel Laureate Samuel Ting. The Taiwan team consisting of the NARL-NSPO, Institute of Physics at Academia Sinica, National Central University, and Chung Shan Institute of Science and Technology is responsible for manufacturing and testing of electronic crates. In the experiment, the NARL-NSPO is in charge of executing AMS-02 electronics thermal vacuum tests and analyses, and developing thermal control system. To ensure most critical crates and interfaces of flight computer function normally in the harsh space thermal environment, the NARL-NSPO had conducted four thermal vacuum tests at its Satellite Integration and Test Facility from 2002-2008. In addition, the NARL-NSPO had completed all the heater installation and thermal performance verification for four flight radiator panels. And in 2010, two NARL-NSPO engineers took part in the test of the AMS-02 system for space travel compliance at the European Space Research and Technology Center in Noordwijk, the Netherlands.