for the PAMELA Collaboration

Abstract. The PAMELA experiment is a satellite-borne apparatus orbiting around the Earth since June 2006. The telescope is designed to study charged particles in the cosmic radiation with a particular focus on antiparticles. The PAMELA apparatus com-prises a Time-of-Flight system, a magnetic spectrom-eter, a silicon-tungsten electromagnetic Calorimeter, an Anticoincidence system, a shower tail catcher scintillator and a Neutron Detector. The scientific objectives addressed by the mission are the mea-surement of the antiprotons and positrons spectra in cosmic rays, the hunt for anti-nuclei as well as the determination of light nuclei fluxes from hydrogen to oxygen. PAMELA will measure the light nuclear component of galactic cosmic rays in the interval 100 MeV/n-200 GeV/n with an accuracy overcoming the uncertainties of the current propagation models. This paper reviews the capability of the PAMELA subdetectors to identify light nuclei. Analysis tech-niques to discriminate light-charged particles will be presented