The Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP) marks the completion of a major step toward assembly, testing and launch of the spacecraft in late September 2023 at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Maryland. The IMAP team met with an expert panel to evaluate the plan to integrate all systems into the spacecraft, such as science instruments, electrical and communications systems, and navigation systems.

Successful completion of this Systems Integration Review (SIR) means the project can continue assembly and testing of the spacecraft in preparation for launch. The process is a bit like a carefully choreographed dance in which vehicles and support systems are delivered to various facilities and tested together in cells in Los Alamos, New Mexico; San Antonio, Texas; and Princeton, New Jersey; Sent back for integration and retesting.

On Friday, September 15, 2023, the Chairman of the Permanent Oversight Board announced that the IMAP project has successfully passed the SIR requirements for integration and transition to testing.

“I am incredibly proud of the entire IMAP team for the hard work and determination everyone has shown to get us to this important milestone,” said David McComas, principal investigator of the IMAP mission and a Princeton University professor. “We now move on to the integration and testing of the spacecraft, where all the individual subsystems and instruments come together to form our entire IMAP observatory.”

The IMAP mission, which will be ready for launch in 2025, will explore our solar neighborhood by deciphering messages in particles from the Sun and beyond our cosmic shield. The mission will map the boundaries of the heliosphere, the electromagnetic bubble surrounding the sun, and the planets blown by the solar wind.

David McComas leads the mission with an international team of more than 20 partner institutions. APL is leading the development phase, building the spacecraft and will manage the mission. IMAP is the fifth mission in NASA’s Terrestrial Solar Probes (STP) program portfolio. NASA’s Research and Heliophysics Projects Division at Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages the STP program for the Heliophysics Division of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. Source