Published online by Cambridge University Press: 30 May 2009
The PAMELA satellite-borne experiment was launched from the Baikonur launch site on the 15th of June 2006. Since July 2006 it is daily delivering to ground 16 GBytes of data. The instrument is composed by a magnetic spectrometer, a time-of-flight system, a silicon-tungsten electromagnetic calorimeter, a neutron detector and anticoincidence scintillators. The primary scientific goal is to searching for evidence of dark matter particle annihilations studying antiparticles fluxes. Preliminary results concerning antiproton-proton and positron-electron ratios are presented.