Select Experimental Trends in Astro-Particle Physics in Space

This report is in part based on the contribution to the Detector Working Group presented at the meeting on LNF long term planning, held on May 7, 2004, at INFN-LNF (Frascati, Italy). The initial work has been expanded, in some case evolving into experimental R&D work on new activities (LAZIO-SiRad and LARES). We will describe: (i) satellites with magnetic spectrometers for particle physics in low earth orbits (LEO, ~ 400 Km), (ii) the idea of networks of μ-satellites (for example to monitor the short term instability of the Van Allen belts); (iii) stratospheric balloon-based experiments; (iv) satellite laser-ranging experiments for testing the frame-dragging effects predicted by general relativity (GR), the equivalence principle and, possibly, forsetting bounds on string-inspired brane theoretical models. We think that this document can be the starting point for future and further work in astro-particle physics in space at LNF.