On September 20th, the 58th school anniversary of USTC, witnessed the donation ceremony of model of Dark Matter Particle Explorer (DAMPE) at the academy memorial hall in USTC. The DAMPE, as one of four science satellites for Space Science Strategic Pioneer Science & Technology Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), has entered into the phase of data collection and processing, and is expected to play a vital role in dark matter detection.

CHANG Jin, chief scientist of DAMPE, vice president of Purple Mountain Observatory, also an alumnus of USTC, as well as AN Qi, head of State Key Laboratory of Particle Detection and Electronics, represented the donor party. While many majority administrators of USTC, including XU Wu, CHEN Xiaojian, ZHU Changfei, HUANG Sufang, DU Jiangfeng, LUO Xisheng and part of the BGO calorimeter development team took part in the ceremony on behalf of USTC. The event was held by LIU Ming, the head of school archive.

The ceremony was officially open started at 9:00 a.m. Prof. CHANG Jin, DU Jiangfeng and AN Qi gave a speech in turn, noting the contribution of USTC in the development of DAMPE and the significant inspiration the donation would bring to all the USTCers. Xiaojian Chen, the vice principle of USTC presented donation certificate to Prof. AN Qi, followed by secretary XU’s ending speech. XU Wu showed his gratitude for such a meaningful gift in celebration for the 58th anniversary of USTC and hope that DAMPE would make contribution to dark matter exploration. USTC’s guiding principles were highlighted, which explained for the success of DAMPE and should be carried on in the future.

After the ceremony, all the participants took a picture together and paid a visit to the history museum of USTC.

Dark Matter Particle Explorer (DAMPE), was developed cooperatively by USTC, Purple Mountain Observatory, Institute of Modern Physics, Institute of High Energy Physics of CAS, with a weight of 1.85 tons. It was names as “Wu Kong”, with the meaning of understanding space and detecting dark matter like Sun Wu Kong with his sharp-sighted eyes in Journey to the West. State Key Laboratory of Particle Detection and Electronics of USTC has undertook the research work of designing the satellite’s key load, BGO including detector and readout electronics.  

(USTC News Center)