SpaceX launches NASA's IMAP mission to map edge of solar system

The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket took off, soaring to the sky over Florida on Tuesday, September 23,  launching three advanced space weather probes that would be used on a mission to protect future astronauts and chart the unknown limits of our solar system.

NASA Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP), the main payload of the launch, launched at NASA Kennedy Space Center at 7:30 a.m. EDT, was accompanied by two companion spacecrafts, i.e., NASA Carruthers Geocorona Observatory (CGO) and Space Weather Follow On-Lagrange 1 (SWFO-L1) of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. 

Each of them will orbit the Earth at a distance of one million miles, the Sun-Earth Lagrange Point 1.

The IMAP mission will be used to monitor the Sun and has a cost of $600 million. 

Its ten instruments will make observations of the solar wind and interstellar particles enabling scientists to produce the first comprehensive map of the heliosphere-the protective bubble formed by the Sun that encloses our solar system against severe cosmic radiation. 

The data is essential to the NASA Artemis program, providing high radiation alerts to astronauts who travel to the Moon and beyond.

Nicky Fox, the associate administrator of NASA, Science Mission Directorate, said, “Radiation exposure is a real threat to our astronauts traveling to the moon and beyond. Humanity has only ever existed inside our protective magnetosphere, and as we travel beyond that protective shield, whether it be to the moon or to Mars, the actionable information from missions like IMAP will keep our astronauts safe.”

The second two probes will help increasing the knowledge of the impact of space weather on our surroundings.

The SWFO-L1 will serve as a warning system for approaching solar storms that can affect satellites and power grids, and the CGO will examine the outermost edges of the atmosphere.

This is another landmark in the history of SpaceX, as this was the 120th successful launch of a Falcon 9 by the company in the year. The first stage of the rocket landed on a droneship in the Atlantic Ocean to be used again.