With the concerns about an U.S. government shutdown removed, the flow at the launch pad is now proceeding as scheduled for a 29th April launch. All the operations are now focused to the launch countdown preparations. Last Friday, the AMS-02 off line test was completed and the experiment powered off: it should not be powered up again until 2.30 hours after the liftoff, when the power will be activated to operate the experiment thermal control system during the orbital approach

STS-134 launch has been postponed to April the 29th at 3:47 p.m. EDT due to a scheduling conflict with a Russian Progress. In the meanwhile, the inspection team determined that no repair is needed to the external fuel tank after the storms that hit Cape Canaveral area last week. The Flight Readiness Review has been rescheduled on the April 19th, when NASA launch managers will select an official launch date. Anyway, from Saturday March 26th AMS-02 is ready in the

March 15th was the long Canister day: AMS-02 was waked up by NASA people at 2:30 a.m. for the final check out.     Then operations started at 8 o’clock: AMS-02 was hanged to the bridge crane and moved to the Weight & Center of Gravity Check stand, where is was finally weighted: 6917.74 kg. The loading into the Canister was the last operation performed and the first ever to be entirely photographed: the pictures below are unique! (Many thanks

Getting closer to the AMS-02 launch for the ISS, the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer Team invites you to stay tuned!     For the latest updates, follow us on Twitter and Facebook!