CALET Instrument Scheduled for Launch to
Space Station: LSU Astrophysicists
Anxiously Await the Data
Professors John Wefel, Mike Cherry and Greg Guzik in the Department of
Physics and Astronomy at Louisiana State University (LSU) have been searching
for possible nearby sources of very high energy cosmic ray particles (e.g. from
an undetected pulsar) and signatures of Dark Matter (the poorly understood
component that makes up about a quarter of the mass-energy of the Universe)
through high altitude balloon flights of the ATIC experiment launched from
Antarctica. They are now part of a new
experiment for the Space Station – CALET – which
will provide a multi-year exposure in space to provide new and expanded data to
continue the search.
The CALorimetric Electron Telescope (CALET) instrument is scheduled for
launch to the International Space Station (ISS) aboard the HTV-5 vehicle on 19
August at about 8:50 pm JST (6:50 am CST) from the Tanegashima Space Center off the
southern coast of Japan. An H-IIB rocket
will launch the H-II Transfer Vehicle, named Kounotori-5, which will dock with
the ISS on 24 August. CALET will then be transferred to the Exposed Platform
attached to the Japanese Experiment Module, Kibo. There it will spend the next 2-5 years
measuring very high energy cosmic ray electrons,
nuclei and gamma rays. The launch and ISS rendezvous can be viewed on NASA TV,
at the following website (http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html). Prof. Cherry will represent LSU at the
launch.
A Japanese led international mission, CALET involves nearly 50
researchers from Japan, Italy and the USA.
LSU leads the US Science Team consisting of LSU, Washington University
in St. Louis, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and The University of Denver and
will host the US CALET Data Center. John P. Wefel, LSU Professor Emeritus of
Physics and Astronomy and US Co-Principal Investigator for CALET said “This mission is a tribute to the importance of international
scientific research.” And added, “CALET
is a great instrument and we expect to make new astrophysical discoveries with
the rich dataset the mission will provide.
The new insights into the workings of powerful astrophysical particle
accelerators can teach us how to develop better accelerating machines here on
the ground. In addition, CALET may
observe a signature of the elusive dark matter.”
CALET will measure the intensity
of cosmic ray electrons, protons, and nuclei accelerated to near the speed of
light, and also observe high energy gamma rays. The
main CALET telescope consists of an array of scintillation detectors to
determine the electric charge of the incoming cosmic ray particles, an imaging
calorimeter of scintillating fibers to determine the particle trajectory, and a
deep lead tungstate calorimeter to measure particle and gamma ray energies up
to 20 Tera-electron volts, a factor of more than three times higher than the
particle beams at the largest manmade accelerator on Earth, the Large Hadron
Collider in Switzerland. At such high energies, CALET may be the first
experiment to observe a ‘near-by’ source of high energy
radiation.
LSU scientists will operate the US CALET Data Center (USCDC) linking to
Japan (and Italy), to obtain and process the flight data, distribute the
results to the other US institutions, and serve as a central site for the data
analysis.
Additional information on the CALET science can be found on the LSU web
site at http://calet.phys.lsu.edu.
CALET is funded in the US by NASA, in Italy by the Italian Space Agency (ASI),
and in Japan by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA).
Mimi LaValle
LSU Physics & Astronomy
External Relations Manager
225-578-1194
mlavall@lsu.edu
More news and information can be found on LSU's home page at www.lsu.edu
Last Updated: August 11, 2015
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