Scientists in China are preparing the country's first dark-matter satellite to start taking data following its launch on 17 December 2015 from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center. The Dark Matter Particle Explorer (DAMPE), which is also dubbed "Wukong" (Monkey King) after the famous warrior from the 16th-century Chinese novel Journey to the West, is in a Sun-synchronous orbit at an altitude of about 500 km above the Earth. It is designed to operate for three years, with a possible extension of two further years.
Having taken four years to develop, DAMPE is designed to identify possible dark-matter signatures through an in-depth study of the particles making up cosmic rays. It is thought that dark-matter particles may annihilate or decay and then produce high-energy gamma rays or cosmic rays – in particular, electron–positron pairs. One of the probe's main aims is to measure such particles with much higher energy resolution and energy range than achievable using existing space experiments.
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