Performance of the ISS-CREAM calorimeter

Abstract

The Cosmic Ray Energetics And Mass experiment for the International Space Station (ISS-CREAM) is scheduled for launch in 2017. It is designed to directly measure and identify the elemental composition of incident Galactic cosmic rays from a few hundred GeV to PeV energies. Such large energy range sensitivity is reached by using an electromagnetic sampling calorimeter (CAL) which measures the energy deposit of particle-induced showers. The CAL is composed of twenty layers of tungsten plates interleaved with scintillating fibers, and glued together using epoxy-coated fiberglass to comply with space launch requirements. In August 2015, beam test measurements were performed at CERN to verify the performance of the CAL using layers of epoxy-coated fiberglass placed between tungsten plates. The CAL response to electron and pion beams and its performance are reported and compared with previous beam test configurations.