Project data
Funding Entity: Italian Space Agency (ASI)
Coordinator: Waseda University – Tokyo – Prof. Shoji Torii
UNISI Principal Investigator: Pier Simone Marrocchesi
Department: Physical Sciences, Earth and Environment
Start date: 2013 – End date: 2027 (possible extension to 2030)
Description
CALET, an acronym for CALorimetric Electron Telescope, is a Japanese led international space mission by JAXA (Japanese AeroSpace Agency) in collaboration with the Italian Space Agency (ASI) and NASA.
The University of Siena is leading the Italian participation in the mission funded by the Italian Space Agency.
Launched from the Tanegashima Space Center with the Japanese rocket H2-B and delivered to the International Space Station (ISS) by the Orbital Transfer Module HTV-5 on August 2015, CALET became the second high energy experiment operating on the ISS after the deployment of the magnetic spectrometer AMS-02 in 2011.
More than one century ago (in 1912), physicists began the experimental study of particles coming from distant stars and impinging on the upper layers of the atmosphere. Historically known as “cosmic rays”, they are mostly protons accompanied by a much smaller number of electrons, positrons, and nuclei. They all interact with the Nitrogen and Oxygen nuclei of air in the upper layers of the atmosphere, creating huge showers of secondary particles that reach us at ground level and cross our bodies. Thanks to our atmospheric shielding, most of the surviving particles, as muons and neutrinos, are completely harmless.
On a Low Earth Orbit at 400 Km of altitude, CALET is carrying out a rich science program, hunting rare energetic particles and photons coming from space before they hit the atmosphere.
CALET most ambitious science goals include the identification of the astrophysical sources capable of accelerating electrons and charged cosmic nuclei at energies far greater than those attainable at the most powerful accelerators on Earth.
Using advanced particle detection techniques, CALET is able to identify the incident particles, assess their kinetic energy, and measure their energy differential spectra. The telescope was built by an international collaboration (Japan, Italy, United States) with a strong component of italian researchers from the universities of Firenze, Padova, Pisa, Siena, and IFAC-CNR. The University of Siena is leading the team of Italian scientists participating in CALET.
This project has received funding from the Italian Space Agency (ASI)