News

APL Team Readies Advanced Imager for Integration onto NASA’s Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe
March 18, 2024

Another of the instruments planned for flight aboard NASA’s Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP) is ready for installation on the spacecraft.

IMAP-Ultra is one of 10 instruments contributed from across 25 partner institutions on the Princeton-led IMAP mission…

Imperial-Built Instrument Jets Off to NASA Ahead of Major Solar Wind Mission
Feb. 21, 2024

An instrument built by Imperial College London physicists is on its way to be fitted onto NASA’s Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP) spacecraft.

The Imperial-built instrument, called MAG, will play a key role in helping IMAP study the solar wind following its launch in 2025. MAG is a magnetometer, which…

New Instrument to Capture Stardust as Part of NASA Mission
Jan. 11, 2024

Scientists and engineers at the University of Colorado Boulder will soon take part in an effort to collect a bit of stardust — the tiny bits of matter that flow through the Milky Way Galaxy and were once the initial building blocks of our solar system.

The pursuit is part of NASA’s Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP)…

NASA’s Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe Passes Key Decision Point-D
Nov. 30, 2023

The Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP) has successfully completed Key Decision Point D (KDP-D). This milestone allows the mission to move from development and design to the assembly, testing, and integration phase. IMAP’s planned launch date, which was no earlier than February 2025, was also reevaluated during the KDP-D and was…

IMAP Passes System Integration Review (SIR)
Sept. 25, 2023

The Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP) marked the completion of an important step on the path to spacecraft assembly, test, and launch operations this week at Johns Hopkin Applied Physics Laboratory (APL). 

The team met with a review panel to evaluate the plan for integrating all systems onto the spacecraft, such…

IMAP Mission Begins Integration and Testing at APL - Watch as the Spacecraft is Built!
Sept. 19, 2023

NASA’s Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP) is embarking on its yearlong integration and testing campaign, during which all of the instruments and components will be added to the spacecraft structure, tested to ensure they will survive the harsh environments of launch and space, and made ready to execute its mission.

On…

NASA’s IMAP Mission Successfully Completes Critical Design Review
Jan. 27, 2023

NASA’s Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP) mission held a critical design review (CDR) this week with a NASA Standing Review Board. This mission-level review was the culmination of individual CDRs conducted for all the instruments and subsystems. While there are still challenges ahead to face as a team, the review board is…

IMAP PI David J. McComas Will Receive the 2023 Arctowski Medal
Jan. 23, 2023

McComas has made seminal contributions through innovative mission and instrumentation development that have benefited and supported the entire scientific community and led ground-breaking observations, analysis, and discovery of fundamental physics of the heliosphere and the very local interstellar medium, the solar wind, and the Earth’s and…

Professor David J. McComas awarded EGU's 2022 Hannes Alfvén Medal
Nov. 3, 2021

The European Geosciences Union (EGU) announced today that David McComas is a recipient of the 2022 Hannes Alfvén Medal for his plasma physics research.

NASA, UK Space Agency Sign Agreement to Build Instrument to Study Interplanetary Space
Oct. 13, 2021

NASA and the UK Space Agency have agreed to cooperate on NASA’s heliophysics mission, the Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP). The agreement, signed Sept. 22, 2021, will allow Imperial College London (ICL) to design and build one of IMAP’s 10 instruments – a magnetometer called MAG – as well as provide ground support and…

Poland will build instrument for Princeton-led mission to study interplanetary space
Jan. 14, 2021

The agreement will allow the Space Research Center of the Polish Academy of Sciences to design and build one of IMAP’s 10 instruments — the Global Solar Wind Structure (GLOWS) instrument — as well as provide ground support and personnel necessary to support the instrument…

NASA, Poland Sign Agreement to Build Instrument to Study Interplanetary Space
Jan. 14, 2021

NASA and the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Republic of Poland have agreed to cooperate on a NASA heliophysics mission, the Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP). The agreement, signed Dec. 30, 2020, will allow the Space Research Center of the Polish Academy of Sciences (CBK PAN) to design and build one of IMAP’s…

NASA Adjusts IMAP Schedule to Accommodate COVID-19 Precautions
Dec. 11, 2020

To accommodate schedule changes due to precautions regarding COVID-19, the preliminary design review for NASA’s Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe, or IMAP, has been moved from February to May 2021. Similarly, the launch readiness date is delayed from Oct. 1, 2024, to Feb. 1, 2025.

NASA Selects Mission to Study Solar Wind Boundary of Outer Solar System
June 1, 2018

NASA has selected a science mission planned for launch in 2024 that will sample, analyze, and map particles streaming to Earth from the edges of interstellar space.

The Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP) mission will help researchers better understand the boundary of the