Nаѕа’ѕ Interѕtellаr марріng And Accelerаtіon ProЬe Pаѕѕeѕ Sуѕteм Integrаtіon Reʋіew

The Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP) marked the completion of a major milestone on the way to spacecraft assembly, testing and launch operations in late September 2019. 2023 at the Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) from Johns Hopkins in Maryland.

The IMAP team met with the review board to evaluate plans to integrate all systems on the spacecraft, such as science instruments, electrical and communications systems, and navigation systems.

The successful completion of this System Integration Review (SIR) means the project can proceed with assembly and testing of the spacecraft in preparation for launch. The process is a bit like a carefully choreographed dance, in which instruments and support systems are moved to different facilities, tested together in rooms in Los Alamos, New Mexico; San Antonio, TX; and Princeton, New Jersey; and send it back to be integrated and tested again.

Friday SeptemberOn December 15, 2023, the Standing Review Committee Chairman announced that the IMAP project has met the SIR requirements to proceed with integration and testing. “I am incredibly proud of the entire IMAP team for everyone’s hard work and determination to help us,” said David McComas, principal investigator on the IMAP mission and a professor at Princeton University achieve and achieve this important milestone”. “We now turn to spacecraft integration and testing, where all the individual subsystems and instruments merge to create our complete IMAP observatory.”

The IMAP mission, ready to launch in 2025, will explore our sun’s neighborhood, decoding messages contained in particles coming from the sun and beyond our cosmic shield we. The mission will map the limits of the heliosphere, the electromagnetic bubble that surrounds the sun and planets and is inflated by the solar wind.

David McComas leads the mission with an international team of more than 20 partner organizations. APL manages the development and manufacturing of the spacecraft and will operate the mission. IMAP is the fifth mission in NASA’s Solar Terrestrial Program (STP) portfolio. The Solar Physics Explorer and Projects Office at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages the STP program for the Solar Physics Division of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate.