Astronauts installed a massive physics experiment at the International Space Station on Thursday, the fourth day of the US shuttle Endeavour’s 16-day mission to spruce up the orbiting lab. The Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer-2 is a $2-billion, 15,000-pound (7,000-kilogram) particle detector that will remain at the ISS to scour the universe for hints of dark matter and antimatter over the next decade. “At 5:46 am EDT, the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer-2 (AMS) was installed successfully on the outside of the International Space Station’s right side,” NASA said. “Mission Specialists Andrew Feustel and Roberto Vittori used the space shuttle’s robotic arm to extract it from Endeavour’s payload bay. They handed it off to the space station’s Canadarm2,” it said. “Pilot Greg Johnson and Mission Specialist Greg Chamitoff then used the robotic arm to install AMS on the starboard side of the station’s truss.” The detector, part of a 16-nation collaboration that aims to discover how the universe began, is expected to send information to scientists on Earth for the next 10 years. “It is certainly a challenging operation any time you are moving around large masses like this,” said NASA official LeRoy Cain, though he declined to say it was the “most challenging” project ever done at the space lab. Meanwhile, NASA managers at mission control in Houston were busily inspecting the shuttle’s heat shield after seven tiles appeared to have been damaged during the orbiter’s ascent Monday. Three tiles are getting extra attention because they appear to have the most damage, Cain said, adding that the inspection was a routine matter.
