PAMELA is a satellite borne experiment designed to study with great accuracy cosmic rays of galactic, solar, and trapped nature in a wide energy range with the study of the antimatter component as main objective. The experiment, housed on board the Russian Resurs-DK1 satellite, was launched on June, 15th 2006 in a 350 × 600 km orbit with an inclination of 70 degrees. In this work we describe the experiment and its first results.