Launch Cancellation and Restoration
For several years it was uncertain if AMS-02 would ever be launched because it was not manifested to fly on any of the remaining Space Shuttle flights. After the 2003 Columbia disaster NASA decided to reduce shuttle flights and retire the remaining shuttles by 2010. A number of flights were removed from the remaining manifest including the flight for AMS-02. In 2006 NASA studied alternative ways of delivering AMS-02 to the space station, but they all proved to be too expensive.
In May 2008 a bill was proposed to launch AMS-02 to ISS on an additional shuttle flight in 2010 or 2011. The bill was passed by the full House of Representatives on 11 June 2008. The bill then went before the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee where it also passed. It was then amended and passed by the full Senate on 25 September 2008, and was passed again by the House on 27 September 2008. It was signed by President George W. Bush on 15 October 2008. The bill authorized NASA to add another space shuttle flight to the schedule before the space shuttle program is discontinued. In January 2009 NASA restored AMS-02 to the shuttle manifest. On 26 August 2010, AMS-02 was delivered from CERN to the Kennedy Space Center by a Lockheed C-5 Galaxy, and it was launched into space on STS-134 on 16 May 2011.
Read more about this topic: Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer
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