NASA engineers have completed a major milestone in the development of the Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP) spacecraft. It is now moving from development and design to assembly, testing and integration, and is scheduled to launch in late spring 2025. Once launched, the spacecraft will fly to the L1 Earth-Sun Lagrange point and analyze how the sun’s 39 Solar wind interacts with charged particles from outside the solar system.

IMAP will build on the discoveries and results made by the two Voyager spacecraft and the Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) and will help investigate two of the most important problems in heliophysics: the energy of charged particles from the Sun and the interaction of the solar wind. boundary with interstellar space.

The mission will map the boundaries of the heliosphere, the electromagnetic bubble that surrounds and protects our solar system, helping researchers better understand the boundaries of the heliosphere. In this region, a steady stream of particles from our Sun, called the solar wind, collide with matter from the rest of the galaxy. This collision limits the amount of harmful cosmic radiation entering the heliosphere.

It will also help resolve the debate about the true shape of the heliosphere. A 2020 study using data from several spacecraft suggested that the sunstroke bubble may have been shaped like a deflated croissant rather than the long-tailed comet shape it once was.

The spacecraft will be located approximately 1.5 million kilometers (1 million miles) from Earth and will collect and analyze flying particles to help map and understand the range of particles in interplanetary space.

A milestone the IMAP mission recently reached is called Key Decision Point D, which allows the mission to move from the development and design phase to the testing and integration phase. The planned launch date has been pushed back by one month, from late April to May 2025, to ensure the project team has adequate resources to “overcome risks and technical challenges during systems integration and testing,” NASA said in a recent mission blog post.

The spacecraft is currently being assembled in a clean room at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland. There is 24/7 live streaming where you can watch the build, integration and tests.

Over the next few months, engineers will install electronics, communications systems, thermal systems, propulsion, batteries and more to begin testing before being shipped to NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center for final pre-launch testing. Spaceship to operate spaceship. Additionally, soon all 10 IMAP instruments will begin arriving from around the world and will be integrated into the spacecraft respectively.