A tractor-trailer carrying the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer or AMS arrives at the Space Station Processing Facility.

At NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, a tractor-trailer carrying the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, or AMS, arrives at the Space Station Processing Facility, where it will be processed for launch. The state-of-the-art particle physics detector arrived on Kennedy's Shuttle Landing Facility aboard an Air Force C-5M aircraft from Europe. It will operate as an external module on the International Space Station to study the universe and its origin by searching for dark matter.

AMS will fly to the station aboard space shuttle Endeavour's STS-134 mission targeted to launch Feb. 26, 2011. Photo credit: NASA/Frankie Martin