August 20, 2015 – The HTV transport module was launched from the Japanese base of Tanegashima, the module will bring to the International Space Station (ISS) the Calet observatory, a mission of the Japan Aerospace (JAXA), with the participation of the Italian Space Agency (ASI) and NASA. Besides the University of Siena, leader of the Italian participation funded by ASI, there are also researchers from the Universities of Pisa, Florence, Padua, Tor Vergata and the IFAC-CNR in Florence. Calet (calorimetric electron telescope) is the second largest space observatory to be installed on the International Space Station after the launch of AMS-02 in 2011. “It is a sophisticated experimental apparatus that can identify particles and high-energy photons coming from the cosmos,” explains Professor Pier Simone Marrocchesi (Siena University and INFN-Pisa), scientific director of the Italian participation in Calet and co-principal investigator of the international collaboration. “For years, we suspected that the high-energy electrons that reach Earth are accelerated by one or more relatively close astrophysical sources, at a distance of a few thousand light years. Calet might be able to perform for the first time their identification, studying the spectrum in the energy of the electrons above 1 TeV.” (Red)
