Shuttle Endeavour arrives at space station for final visit, delivers pricey physics experiment

Shuttle Endeavour arrives at space station for final visit, delivers pricey physics experiment
By Associated Press, Updated: Wednesday, May 18, 8:45 AM

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Endeavour and its six astronauts showed up at the International Space Station on Wednesday with the most expensive payload ever carried by a shuttle, a $2 billion magnetic device scientists hope will unravel the mysteries of the cosmos.

Shuttle commander Mark Kelly — the husband of wounded U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords — carried out Endeavour’s final docking. The lead flight director described the linkup as “really silky smooth” and noted Kelly has been performing “unbelievably” well in orbit.

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Kelly and his crew will spend nearly two weeks at the space station. Their main job is to install the 7-ton Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, an international collaboration representing 16 countries and led by Nobel-winning physicist Samuel Ting of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

At the heart of the spectrometer is a 3-foot, doughnut-shaped magnet. The instrument will seek out invisible dark matter as well as antimatter; whether any of this is found or not, the results will help explain what the universe is made of and how it formed.

More:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/shuttle-endeavour-arrives-at-space-station-for-final-visit-delivers-pricey-physics-experiment/2011/05/18/AFWe1R6G_story.html?wprss=rss_national

But, here's the NASA page for the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer experiment and the Wikipedia page. This experiment almost didn't fly due to the cutback in the number of shuttle flights, which would have been a shame since it has such possibilities for solving some of physics and cosmologies major mysteries.