Continuation of the mission NINA: Nina-2 experiment on MITA satellite

NINA-2 is a silicon detector cosmic ray telescope to be launched on board the Italian satellite MITA by the end of 1999. Its physics objectives are to study - for a period of at least 3 years - the cosmic ray component for nuclei from Hydrogen to Iron in the energy range between 10 and 200 MeV/n. Furthermore, the segmented nature of the silicon strip detector will allow the detection outside the containment of particles up to 1 GeV/n. As the satellite will be placed in 87.3 degrees sun-synchronous polar orbit around the Earth, it will be able to detect particle of solar and galactic nature, studying long and short term transient phenomena such as solar modulation effects - as we move toward solar maximum - and the composition of solar flares. The interaction of the Sun with Earth's magnetosphere will also be observed. The characteristics of MITA on board computer system allowed a very fast hardware and software integration between the scientific payload and the satellite, optimising the device observational capabilities.