NASA's IMAP project, designed to explore the edge of the heliosphere, has completed an important phase of development and is about to be assembled and tested. The Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP) marks an important step on the road to completion of spacecraft assembly, testing and launch operations this week at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Maryland.
Artistic impression of the Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP). This mission will help us better understand the flow of particles from the Sun, called the solar wind, and how these particles interact with space in and around the solar system. Source: NASA/Johns Hopkins APL/Princeton University/Steve Gribben
The IMAP team met with a review panel to evaluate plans to integrate all systems onto the spacecraft, such as scientific instruments, electrical and communications systems, and navigation systems. The successful completion of the System Integration Review (SIR) means the program can continue to assemble and test the spacecraft in preparation for launch. The process is somewhat of a choreographed dance, with instruments and support systems being shipped to different facilities, tested together in test chambers in Los Alamos, New Mexico, San Antonio, Texas, and Princeton, New Jersey, and then shipped back to be integrated and tested again.
The Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Explorer (IMAP) will study the protective magnetic bubble that surrounds the solar system, called the heliosphere, and the particle acceleration phenomena that occur in the heliosphere. Source: NASA/Princeton University/Johns Hopkins University Space Lab/Josh Diaz
On Friday, September 15, 2023, the Chairman of the Standing Review Committee announced that the IMAP project successfully passed the SIR requirements and entered the integration and testing phase.
David McComas, principal investigator of the IMAP mission and a professor at Princeton University, said: "I am extremely proud of the entire IMAP team. Everyone's hard work and determination have allowed us to reach and pass this critical milestone. We are now entering the spacecraft integration and test phase, where all subsystems and instruments will be integrated together to form our complete IMAP observatory."
The IMAP mission, due to launch in 2025, will explore our solar neighborhood and decode information from particles coming from the sun and beyond the cosmic shield. The mission will map the boundaries of the heliosphere - the electromagnetic bubble around the sun and planets blown by the solar wind.
David McComas leads an international team of more than 20 partner agencies on this mission. APL is responsible for management of the development phase, construction of the spacecraft, and mission operations. IMAP is the fifth mission in NASA's Solar-Terrestrial Probes (STP) program portfolio. The Explorer and Heliophysics Programs Division at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages the STP program for the Heliophysics Division of NASA's Science Mission Directorate.