Dark Matter Research and the PAMELA Space Mission

On the 15th of June 2006, the PAMELA satellite-borne experiment was launched from the Bajkonur cosmodrome and since July 2006 it has been collected data. The core of the apparatus is a silicon-microstrip magnetic spectrometer combined with a time-of-flight system, a silicon-tungsten electromagnetic calorimeter, an anticoincidence system, a shower tail counter scintillator and a neutron detector. The overall devices allow precision studies of the charged cosmic radiation to be conducted over a wide energy range (100 MeV-100's GeV) with high statistics.The primary scientific goal is the measurement of the antiproton and positron energy spectra in order to search for exotic sources, such as dark matter particle annihilation. PAMELA is also searching for primordial antinuclei (He). Concomitant, but not secondary, goals are the measurements of light nuclei and their isotopes for studying the energy dependence of cosmic ray lifetimes in the Galaxy, the monitoring of the solar activity and the study of the radiation belts.