Status of the KASCADE-Grande experiment

The KASCADE-Grande experiment, located at Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe (Germany), is a multi component extensive air-shower experiment dedicated to the study of cosmic-rays and their interactions at primary energies . The main goal of the experiment is the detection of the “iron-knee” in the energy spectrum at around 1017 eV, which is expected following the KASCADE and EAS-TOP observations where the positions of the knees of individual mass groups suggest a rigidity dependence. The experiment consists of the former KASCADE (detecting the electromagnetic, the muonic at different energy thresholds and the hadronic components) and Grande, which is an array of plastic scintillators providing a large acceptance area (0.5 km2). In addition the experiment measures in coincidence with the LOPES radio antennas. The experimental set-up, the EAS reconstruction accuracies and first studies, based on 1 year of data taking, are presented.