Cosmic rays from space based observatories

• Main Author: Piero Spillantini
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Antarc*; Antarctica
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.455.1359; http://www.slac.stanford.edu/econf/C080625/pdf/0019.pdf

Because of the increasing importance of CR research in nuclear physics and in as-trophysics, a systematic research program was elaborated by NASA at the beginning of the eighties. The major points were based on experiments borne to space by the shuttle vehicles or on board of the Freedom Space Station (FSS). The loss of the Chal-lenger in 1986, the ending of the FSS program in 1991 and the long lasting shortage of means of transportation to orbit halted the space based part of the program. In last two decades a moderate progress was obtained by balloon borne experiments and by ground based huge area detector arrays. Only recently part of the original pro-gram can be recovered in the observation of high energy gamma rays by the launch of the AGILE and GLAST instruments, and in the research on the antimatter compo-nent of CRs with the long duration balloon flights of BESS in Antarctica, the going on PAMELA mission and the preparation of the AMS-2 instrument. The prelimi-nary results of the PAMELA are discussed, and the near and far future perspectives considered.