The IMAP mission, which aims to study the heliosphere, was scheduled for spring 2025. However, the space agency has announced that it and two other spacecraft will be launched into space late next year.
IMAP launch delayed
On Friday, December 20, representatives of NASA said that delayed the launch of the mission Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP). This spacecraft, along with several others, was to be launched in the spring of 2025 using a Falcon 9 rocket. However, the timeline for this project is now rather vaguely set for the end of 2025.
After the launch, IMAP was to reach the Lagrangian point L1 of the Earth-sun system, located at a distance of 1.5 million kilometers from us. And there, in conditions where all gravitational forces are balanced, to study our luminary. To be more precise, scientists are interested in the heliosphere, a magnetic bubble created by our luminary.
The goal of the IMAP mission is not only to obtain purely scientific data. The information obtained about solar wind particles can also be used to ensure the safety of mankind. After all, these are the factors that can cause devastating magnetic storms.
Other payloads
It is worth noting that IMAP is the main, but not the only payload in this launch. Together with it, two other spacecraft are due to launch into space. One of them is the Carruthers Geocorona Observatory (formerly known as Global Lyman-alpha Imager of the Dynamic Exosphere or GLIDE), which will study the farthest region of the Earth’s atmosphere, the exosphere, from the Earth-Sun L-1 point.
The second spacecraft is called Space Weather Follow-On (SWFO) L-1. It is a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration mission to monitor solar weather from the Earth-Sun L1 point for operational purposes, including space weather forecasting.
The launch was ordered back in 2020 and was originally supposed to take place as early as 2024. However, in 2023, the first delay of the mission was announced. In the same year, it became known that the Solar Cruiser solar sailcraft, which was planned to be launched together with IMAP into space, was not flying.
It was also originally planned that the Lunar Trailblazer, a lunar explorer, would travel with IMAP. However, in 2022 it was decided to launch it together with IM-2 in the hope that it could be realized in 2023.
Provided by spacenews.com
