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The Pamela apparatus will allow precise measurements of cosmic rays in Low Earth Orbit, mainly focusing on the antiparticles component. The apparatus is now ready for flight, and the launch is foreseen during June 2006. The paper briefly reports the status of the experiment, and the performances of the various components as measured before the launch.

EGLE is a wide frequency band search- coil magnetometer designed and built at the Roma Tre University. It has been installed onboard the ISS by the Italian astronaut Roberto Vittori on April 25, 2005 within the LAZIO- EGLE experiment carried out during the ENEIDE Soyuz mission. The scope of the experiment is to test EGLE in space and to investigate geomagnetic field variations. The main applications of EGLE are the study of electromagnetic environment inside the ISS, the correlation of magnetic field data with particle fluxes detected by LAZIO particle detector, and the monitoring of ionospheric perturbations possibly caused by Earth seismic activity. Since continuous electromagnetic field measurements on board the ISS are important for diverse space applications, a magnetometer with a suitable design is requested. Appropriate solutions for these applications, which have been adopted by EGLE, are in particular the use of 1- Wire technology and the possibility to detect by means of a search- coil magnetometer a large portion of the ULF frequency band, usually measured by flux- gate probes. To investigate the topside ionosphere electromagnetic environment and stability of Van Allen radiation belts in relation with seismic and anthropogenic electromagnetic emissions, a specific satellite mission (the ESPERIA project) has been designed for the Italian Space Agency (ASI), and up to now a few instruments of its payload have been built and tested in space. One of them is exactly the EGLE search- coil magnetometer. The first magnetic observations performed by this instrument reveal to be promising and demand for a further and deeper analysis based on a longer time series of data.

The Altcriss project was submitted in response to ESA AO-2004. It was approved in March 2005 and begun in December 2005 with Progress 21-P launch from Baikonur. It is currently operating on board the International Space Station, performing a survey of the radiation environment and the effectiveness of shielding materials from cosmic rays. It uses the active silicon detector Sileye-3 and a series of passive dosimeters (CR-39, TLD). The detectors have currently been operational in different location of the Pirs (docking) and Service module of the Russian section of the Station. The project is expected to continue up to 2008.

The PAMELA experiment is a multi-purpose apparatus built around a permanent magnet spectrometer, with the main goal of studying in detail the antiparticle component of cosmic rays. The apparatus will be carried in space by means of a Russian satellite, due to launch in 2005, for a three year-long mission. The characteristics of the detectors composing the instrument, alongside the long lifetime of the mission and the orbital characteristics of the satellite, will allow to address several items of cosmic-ray physics. In this paper, we will focus on the solar and heliospheric observation capabilities of PAMELA.

The experiment LAZIO-Sirad was placed on board the International Space Station (ISS) with a Progress cargo on the beginning of March 2005. It represents the continuation of previous experiments (also on board Mir station) with the Sileye devices. It was operational as part of the ”Eneide” mission for 10 days from April the 17th 2005. The experiment aimed to study and correlate measurements of cosmic ray and magnetic environment on board the ISS with two devices: the LAZIO detector, built for the mission and the Sileye-3/Alteino telescope fitted with special multimaterial shielding tiles

The Atomic Force Microscope (AFM) was used to inspect collagen fibrils deposited on mica sheets at different fibrillogenesis times. Collagen was obtained from rat tail tendon fibers. Various fibril forms were observed, together with the characteristic periodic intra-fibril structure (D-bands). The fibril thickness, width, D-band periodicity and depth were measured and the statistical distribution of these parameters at 1, 2, 5, 10 and 15 days of in vitro fibril formation time was calculated. The fibrils showed an increasing size with time, but the band interval measure remained stable. The band depth, after an initial increase, exhibited a relative steadiness. The results indicate that AFM offers, at low resolution, images qualitatively similar to those obtained with electron microscopy, but with less manipulation of the sample. A quantitative evaluation of collagen structural features in the nanometer scale is made possible by AFM.

PAMELA is a satellite borne experiment designed to study with great accuracy cosmic rays of galactic, solar, and trapped nature in a wide energy range protons: 80 MeV-700 GeV, electrons 50 MeV-400 GeV). Main objective is the study of the antimatter component: antiprotons (80 MeV-190 GeV), positrons (50 MeV-270 GeV) and search for antimatter with a precision of the order of 10^-8). The experiment, housed on board the Russian Resurs-DK1 satellite, was launched on June, 15, 2006 in a 350*600 km orbit with an inclination of 70 degrees. The detector is composed of a series of scintillator counters arranged at the extremities of a permanent magnet spectrometer to provide charge, Time-of-Flight and rigidity information. Lepton/hadron identification is performed by a Silicon-Tungsten calorimeter and a Neutron detector placed at the bottom of the device. An Anticounter system is used offline to reject false triggers coming from the satellite. In self-trigger mode the Calorimeter, the neutron detector and a shower tail catcher are capable of an independent measure of the lepton component up to 2 TeV. In this work we describe the experiment, its scientific objectives and the performance in the first months after launch., Accepted for publication on Advances in Space Research

The PAMELA experiment aims to measure with great precision the antimatter present in our Galaxy in the form of high energy particles; in the same time it will measure the galactic, solar and trapped components of cosmic rays. The experiment will be housed on board a Russian Resurs-DK1 satellite and launched in the year 2005 to fly a 350–600 km orbit with an inclination of 70.4°. All operations of the instrument – including data storage – are handled by the PAMELA Storage and Control Unit (PSCU), which is divided in a Central Processing Unit (CPU) and a Mass Memory (MM). The CPU of the experiment is based on a ERC-32 architecture (a SPARC v7 implementation) running a real time operating system (RTEMS). The main purpose of the CPU is to handle slow control, acquire and store data on a 2 GB MM. Communications between PAMELA and the satellite are performed via a 1553B bus. Data acquisition from the sub-detectors (Time-of-Flight counter, Magnetic Spectrometer, Electromagnetic Calorimeter, Anticoincidence shield, Neutron Detector, and Bottom scintillator S4) is performed via a 2 MB/s interface. Download from the PAMELA MM towards the satellite main storage unit is handled by a 16 MB/s bus. The daily amount of data transmitted to ground has been evaluated in not more 20 GB. In this work, we describe the CPU of the experiment and the general software scheme.

The PAMELA experiment is a satellite-borne apparatus designed to study charged particles in the cosmic radiation with a particular focus on antiparticles. PAMELA is mounted on the Resurs DK1 satellite that was launched from the Baikonur cosmodrome on June 15th 2006. The PAMELA apparatus comprises a time-of-flight system, a magnetic spectrometer, a silicon-tungsten electromagnetic calorimeter, an anticoincidence system, a shower tail catcher scintillator and a neutron detector. The combination of these devices allows antiparticles to be reliably identified from a large background of other charged particles. This paper reviews the design, space qualification and on-ground performance of PAMELA. The in-orbit performance will be discussed in future publications., Replaced some paragraphs in text and some pictures

Silicon Photomultipliers (Si-PM) consist of an array of semiconductor photodiodes joint on the common substrate and operating in limited geiger mode. A new generation of Si-PM is currently under test in INFN Rome Tor Vergata facilities: they consist of a 5625 element, 3 * 3 mm 2 array with an improved light response. These elements have been characterized. Furthermore, a functional model of the Si-PM has been developed to be used in a VLSI development of front-end electronics.

The Sirad experiment aims to measure with great precision the cosmic ray radiation environment on the outside of the International Space Station. The detector, composed of a stack of 32 silicon detectors arranged in X–Y pattern and surmounted by a scintillator system, is capable of detecting nuclei from protons to Iron in the energy range between ≃ 30 MeV / n and ≃ 5 GeV / n .

Collagen structure of young and old rats was examined by using atomic force microscope (AFM) images. Rat tail tendons of eight and twenty-four month-old Wistar rats were digested enzymatically (pepsin), and allowed to refibrillate for 24 hours at 37 degrees C. The samples were examined using a Nanoscope III (Digital Instruments, Santa Barbara, CA, U.S.A.) with a J scanning head and a 200 microns silicon nitride cantilever. The study was performed in air and without filters. The AFM inspection of refibrillated collagen produced images showing long fibrils with relatively homogeneous heights and widths, characterized by clear banding with a periodic interval (D band) of 67 nm. With respect to collagen extracted from young rats, collagen extracted from old rats revealed fibrils exhibiting the same band interval, but with lower widths and heights. Furthermore, the depth of gap between two overlaps showed a higher mean value in the aged rats. These data are consistent with biochemical reports of collagen modifications during aging; we suggest that post-synthetic reactions might be responsible for this as they interfere with the refibrillation process and also modify the three-dimensional structure of fibrils.