3.09.2021
Artist’s impression of the Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP). The mission will help us better understand the flow of particles from the Sun called the solar wind — and how those particles interact with space within the solar system and beyond. Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins APL/Princeton University/Steve Gribben
NASA has given Princeton University, the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) and their many partner institutions the go-ahead to begin implementing the Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP) — a mission to sample, analyze and map particles streaming to Earth from the edges of interstellar space.
Set to launch in February 2025, IMAP will investigate two critical issues in space physics: the acceleration of energetic particles from the Sun and the interaction of these particles — known as the solar wind — with the interstellar medium. The solar-powered spacecraft will be positioned about one million miles (1.5 million kilometers) away from Earth and toward the Sun at what is called the first Lagrange point, where it can monitor the interactions between the solar wind and the interstellar medium in the outer solar system.
In May, the IMAP team underwent a preliminary design review, covering topics such as spacecraft design, mission requirements, science plans, schedule and costs. Held at APL, which manages the mission and will build and operate the IMAP spacecraft, the review included a panel of external experts tasked with evaluating the information and assessing mission progress for NASA. Following a subsequent meeting, the team received confirmation from NASA on July 12 to proceed to the next stage of development, which includes the detailed, final spacecraft and mission design.
“This review was a significant step forward,” said Princeton University astrophysics professor David McComas, who, as IMAP principal investigator, leads the mission and its international team of 24 partner institutions. “The team has worked very hard to show that we are on track to meet the cost, schedule and technical requirements of a challenging mission, and the reviewers recognized that.”
Carrying 10 science instruments provided by international and domestic research organizations and universities, IMAP will help researchers better understand the boundary of the heliosphere, the magnetic “bubble” surrounding and protecting our solar system. It’s here where the constant flow of the solar wind collides with material from the rest of the galaxy. This collision limits the amount of harmful cosmic radiation entering the heliosphere, and by collecting and analyzing the particles that make it through, IMAP will reveal just how the heliosphere filters cosmic rays.
The mission also aims to learn more about the generation of cosmic rays in the heliosphere; these particles pose risks to astronauts and technological systems, but they may also play a role in the formation and presence of life in the universe.
“With science and engineering expertise from around the world, the IMAP team has a deep experience in missions designed to examine, in depth, the Sun’s effects on our solar system and the space beyond,” said Joe Westlake, the IMAP project scientist from APL. “We’re excited to fine-tune the designs on a spacecraft and mission that will deliver unprecedented science.”
IMAP is the fifth mission in NASA’s Solar Terrestrial Probes (STP) Program portfolio. The Heliophysics Program Office at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages the STP Program for the agency’s Heliophysics Division of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate.
Quelle: THE JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY
----
Update: 24.12.2024
.
NASA delays launch of heliophysics missions
NASA's IMAP mission is now scheduled to launch no earlier than September 2025. Credit: NASA/Princeton/Patrick McPike
WASHINGTON — NASA is delaying the launch of three missions to study the sun by several months because of issues with the primary payload.
In a statement issued after the close of business Dec. 20, NASA announced the launch of its Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP) spacecraft on a Falcon 9, previously scheduled for the spring of 2025, had been pushed back to no earlier than September. The agency said only that the delay gives “additional time for IMAP flight systems preparations prior to launch.”
A Dec. 18 preview by NASA’s Kennedy Space Center for 2025 mentioned that IMAP would launch in “late 2025” but was not more specific.
IMAP will operate from the Earth-sun L-1 Lagrange point, 1.5 million kilometers from Earth in the direction of the sun. It will study the heliosphere, the magnetic bubble created by the sun that shields the solar system from interstellar particles. It will also examine the solar wind.
“IMAP is a mission that has two halves,” said Joe Westlake, director of NASA’s heliophysics division, during a town hall session at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union Dec. 9. The mission, he described, will explore the heliosphere and local solar neighborhood but also has a role “safeguarding humanity” by monitoring solar weather. In that presentation he offered no hint of any delay in the mission.
IMAP was once scheduled to launch in 2024 but has slipped several times. In November 2023, NASA delayed the launch from February 2025 to April or May 2025 after completing a review called Key Decision Point D, stating that then delay would “ensure that the project team has adequate resources to address risks and technical complexities during system integration and testing.”
The delay in IMAP affects two other missions flying as rideshare payloads on the launch. One, the Carruthers Geocorona Observatory (formerly known as Global Lyman-alpha Imager of the Dynamic Exosphere or GLIDE), will study the outermost region of the Earth’s atmosphere, the exosphere, from the Earth-sun L-1 point. Space Weather Follow-On (SWFO) L-1 is a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration mission to monitor solar weather from the Earth-sun L-1 point for operational purposes, including space weather forecasting.
“With this mission, we’re leaning into the ability to take rideshares,” Westlake said at the town hall meeting, “to look at the ability of each launch to squeeze as much science as we can on every chance to get off of this Earth.”
The launch, awarded by NASA to SpaceX in 2020, originally carried two other rideshare payloads. One, a solar sail mission called Solar Cruiser, failed to advance to phase C of its development because of technical issues and was terminated in 2023. The other, the Lunar Trailblazer lunar orbiter, was moved off the mission in 2022, with NASA instead purchasing a rideshare launch slot on the IM-2 lunar lander mission by Intuitive Machines.
NASA said at the time it moved Lunar Trailblazer off the IMAP launch to avoid delays, hoping at the time that IM-2 would launch in 2023. That mission is instead scheduled to launch no earlier than February 2025.
Quelle: SN