NINA: a lightweight silicon strip detector for cosmic ray research in space

NINA is the first of three telescopes of the Russian Italian Mission (RIM), devoted through the detection of cosmic rays to the study of galactic and extragalactic astrophysical phenomena. The detector of RIM-1 mission consists of 16 double sided silicon strips. The use of silicon technology is space applications has severel advantages thanks to its low consumption, high signal to noise ratio, low dead area, and no use of gas refueling systems. Indeed these detectors and the electronics used comes from balloon cosmic ray research carried out by the Wizard collaboration in the past years. NINA will be placed in a 700 km polar orbit on the Russian Resource-01 n. 4 satellite by the end of 1996. Solar and galactic cosmic ray nuclei from Hydrogen to Iron in the 10-100 MeV/n region will be studied. In addition to the physical goals, which include the study of anomalous component nuclei inside and outside the radiation belts, technological aspects of this low cost (1.5M dollars) mission will be equally important to the development of the following two steps of RIM mission: PAMELA and GILDA missions--devoted to antimatter and gamma ray research respectively--will make extensive use of the research and development performed with NINA.