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NASA and SpaceX are now targeting as soon as September 2025 for the launch of the agency’s spacecraft, which is currently undergoing integration and testing at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland. additional time for IMAP flight systems preparations prior to launch.

IMAP will study the heliosphere — the Sun’s magnetic bubble that shields our solar system — to better understand the protective boundary. To achieve this, IMAP will sample, analyze and map particles streaming toward Earth from the edges of interstellar space. The mission will also help researchers learn more about the solar wind — the constant stream of particles from the Sun — energetic particles, and cosmic rays in the heliosphere. These particles can affect human explorers in space and harm technological systems, and likely play a role in the presence of life itself in the universe.

In a complex process that took over a year, engineers at APL pulled together IMAP’s instruments, subsystems and components and ran them through a gauntlet of tests to ensure mission success.

“The IMAP team has shown tremendous dedication and agility throughout our integration campaign, juggling the competing demands of each instrument and subsystem,” said Bobby Braun, head of APL’s Space Exploration Sector. “As a result of their extraordinary efforts, we now have a fully integrated flight system ready for environmental testing. The team is well prepared for the journey ahead and looks forward to launching NASA’s next fundamental heliophysics science mission as soon as September 2025.”

IMAP will fly 10 instruments built by multiple organizations to study the solar wind, interstellar dust and other particles in space. A of the clean room where the spacecraft is currently undergoing integration and testing is available to watch on the .

IMAP will launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.

Princeton University professor David J. McComas leads the IMAP mission with an international team of 25 partner institutions. APL builds the spacecraft and operates the mission. IMAP is the fifth mission in NASA’s Solar Terrestrial Probes (STP) Program portfolio. The Explorers and Heliophysics Project Division 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.

Adapted from a NASA release