In-flight operations and status of the AMS-02 silicon tracker

Abstract

The AMS-02 detector is a large acceptance magnetic spectrometer operating on the International Space Station since May 2011. More than 60 billion events have been collected by the instrument as of today. One of the key subdetectors of AMS-02 is the microstrip silicon Tracker, designed to precisely measure the trajectory and absolute charge of cosmic rays in the GeV-TeV energy range. In addition, with the magnetic field, is also measuring the particle magnetic rigidity, defined as R = pc=Ze, and the sign of the charge. This report presents the Tracker on-line operations and calibration during the first four years of data taking in space. The track reconstruction efficiency and the resolution will be also reviewed.