Our Contribution

Exploring Our Solar Neighborhood

NASA’s Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP) mission, which APL is building in partnership with Principal Investigator David McComas of Princeton University, will study the boundary of our heliosphere, decoding the messages in particles from the Sun and beyond our cosmic shield.

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The Mission

Like a modern-day celestial cartographer, the spacecraft will map the boundaries of the heliosphere—the electromagnetic bubble surrounding the Sun and planets that is inflated by the solar wind and shields our solar system from cosmic radiation.

Princeton University professor and principal investigator David J. McComas leads IMAP with an international team of more than 25 partner institutions. APL built the spacecraft, manages the development phase, and will operate the mission post-launch.

Led by APL in a complex process that took over a year, the spacecraft’s instruments, subsystems, and components were pulled together and run through a gauntlet of tests to ensure mission success.

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Mission Facts

Launch
2025

Principal Investigator
David McComas, Princeton University
 

Project Manager
Kieran Hegarty, Johns Hopkins APL

Project Scientist
Matina Gkioulidou, Johns Hopkins APL
 

IMAP Spacecraft
An interactive, 3D rendering of the IMAP spacecraft. Click on the image and drag to see all angles of the spacecraft.

Spacecraft and Instruments

IMAP will fly 10 instruments built by multiple organizations to study the solar wind, interstellar dust, and other particles in space. Among them is IMAP-Ultra, one of the three energetic neutral atom (ENA) imagers onboard IMAP, and designed and built by APL.

IMAP-Ultra will help us understand how the heliospheric bubble, created by the Sun, protects the solar system. Ultra does so by accurately measuring the ENAs formed when charged particles from the solar wind reach the outer heliosphere and interact with neutral particles in interstellar space.

Rendering of the IMAP spacecraft

IMAP-Ultra Interstellar Medium

Advancing designs built to study energetic particles around Earth and Saturn, IMAP-Ultra will image energetic particles from the edge of the solar system, providing detailed visuals of what happens when the Sun’s solar wind meets interstellar space. IMAP-Ultra is one of 10 instruments that will be included on the spacecraft.
Learn more about IMAP-Ultra

Related News

Emory Toomey and Tyler Radomsky prepare to lift NASA’s Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe for testing

International Team Readies the Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe for Launch Feb 4, 2025

Most people hear “spacecraft” and envision rockets blasting into space, but they’re often not aware of the meticulous integration and testing campaigns to get a spacecraft like IMAP ready for the launchpad.
Learn more about International Team Readies the Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe for Launch
Matina Gkioulidou, IMAP-Ultra instrument lead, left, and Alexandra Dupont, Ultra lead engineer, work on the Ultra instrument at Johns Hopkins APL.

Johns Hopkins APL Team Readies Advanced Imager for Integration Onto NASA’s Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe Mar 18, 2024

Another instrument planned for flight aboard NASA’s Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP) is ready for installation on the spacecraft.
Learn more about Johns Hopkins APL Team Readies Advanced Imager for Integration Onto NASA’s Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe
The IMAP spacecraft returns to the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory.

IMAP Mission Begins Integration and Testing at Johns Hopkins APL — Public Invited to Follow Along With Livestream Sep 20, 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 their mission.
Learn more about IMAP Mission Begins Integration and Testing at Johns Hopkins APL — Public Invited to Follow Along With Livestream
Boundaries of the heliosphere

IMAP Mission Successfully Completes Critical Design Review Feb 6, 2023

After a successful mission-level design review, the Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe team got NASA’s go-ahead to continue working on the spacecraft, instruments and systems. Johns Hopkins APL is building and will operate IMAP, which is set for a 2025 launch.
Learn more about IMAP Mission Successfully Completes Critical Design Review
Artist’s impression of the Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP).

IMAP Mission Advances to Next Development Stage Aug 17, 2021

NASA has given Princeton University, Johns Hopkins APL and their many partner institutions the go-ahead to begin implementing the Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP), a mission to sample, analyze and map particles streaming to Earth from the edges of interstellar space.
Learn more about IMAP Mission Advances to Next Development Stage
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Interstellar Medium
Graphic of Interstellar Medium

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