spacetoday.net: AMS installed on ISS

Posted: Fri, May 20, 2011, 8:01 AM ET (1201 GMT)
STS-134: AMS being installed on ISS (NASA)

Astronauts installed a billion-dollar physics experiment on the exterior of the International Space Station on Thursday. Astronauts used the shuttle and station's robotic arms to move the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) from the cargo bay of Endeavour to its perch on the station's truss, mounting it shortly before 6 am EDT (1000 GMT) Thursday. The AMS, with a cost of over $1.5 billion, is designed to study powerful cosmic ray particles, and scientists hope the device will provide new insights into the nature of antimatter and dark matter. The STS-134 shuttle mission was added to the manifest in 2009 to bring the AMS to the station after NASA previously concluded there was no room for the experiment on any of the remaining missions then planned for the shuttle.