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By NASA
Technicians conduct blanket closeout work on NASA’s IMAP (Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe) observatory at the Astrotech Space Operations Facility near NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Friday, Aug. 15, 2025. The IMAP mission will explore and map the boundaries of the heliosphere — a huge bubble created by the Sun’s wind that encapsulates our entire solar system — and study how the heliosphere interacts with the local galactic neighborhood beyond.Credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett Media accreditation is open for the launch of three observatories that will study the Sun and enhance the ability to make accurate space weather forecasts, helping protect technology systems that affect life on Earth.
NASA is targeting no earlier than Tuesday, Sept. 23, for the launch of the agency’s IMAP (Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe), the Carruthers Geocorona Observatory, and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Space Weather Follow On–Lagrange 1 (SWFO-L1) observatory. The observatories will launch aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Accredited media will have the opportunity to participate in prelaunch briefings and interviews with key mission personnel prior to launch, as well as cover the launch. NASA will communicate additional details regarding the media event schedule as the launch date approaches.
Media accreditation deadlines for the launch are as follows:
International media without U.S. citizenship must apply by 11:59 p.m. EDT on Sunday, Aug. 31. U.S. media and U.S. citizens representing international media organizations must apply by 11:59 p.m. on Thursday, Sept. 4. All accreditation requests must be submitted online at:
https://media.ksc.nasa.gov
NASA’s media accreditation policy is available online. For questions about accreditation, please email: ksc-media-accreditat@mail.nasa.gov. For other mission questions, please contact the NASA Kennedy newsroom at 321-867-2468.
Para obtener información en español en sobre el Centro Espacial Kennedy, comuníquese con Antonia Jaramillo: 321-501-8425. Si desea solicitar entrevistas en español sobre IMAP, póngase en contacto con María-José Viñas: maria-jose.vinasgarcia@nasa.gov.
NASA’s IMAP will use 10 science instruments to study and map the heliosphere, a vast magnetic bubble surrounding the Sun protecting our solar system from radiation incoming from interstellar space. This mission and its two rideshares will orbit the Sun near Lagrange point 1, about one million miles from Earth, where it will scan the heliosphere, analyze the composition of charged particles, and investigate how those particles move through the solar system. This will provide information on how the Sun accelerates charged particles, filling in essential puzzle pieces to understand the space weather environment across the solar system. The IMAP spacecraft also will continuously monitor solar wind and cosmic radiation. Scientists can use this information to evaluate new and improved capabilities for space weather prediction tools and models, which are vital for the health of human space explorers and the longevity of technological systems, like satellites and power grids, that can affect life on Earth.
The agency’s Carruthers Geocorona Observatory is a small satellite set to study the exosphere, the outermost part of Earth’s atmosphere. Using ultraviolet cameras, it will monitor how space weather from the Sun impacts the exosphere, which plays a crucial role in protecting Earth from space weather events that can affect satellites, communications, and power lines. The exosphere, a cloud of neutral hydrogen extending to the Moon and possibly beyond, is created by the breakdown of water and methane by ultraviolet light from the Sun, and its glow, known as the geocorona, has been observed globally only four times before this mission.
The SWFO-L1 mission, managed by NOAA and developed with NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and commercial partners, will use a suite of instruments to provide real-time measurements of solar wind, along with a compact coronagraph to detect coronal mass ejections from the Sun. The observatory, serving as an early warning beacon for potentially destructive space weather events, will enable faster and more accurate forecasts. Its 24/7 data will support NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center in protecting vital infrastructure, economic interests, and national security, both on Earth and in space.
David McComas, professor, Princeton University, leads the IMAP mission with an international team of 25 partner institutions. The Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, built the spacecraft and operates the mission. NASA’s IMAP is the fifth mission in NASA’s Solar Terrestrial Probes program portfolio. The Explorers and Heliophysics Project Division at NASA Goddard manages the program for the agency’s Heliophysics Division of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate.
NASA’s Launch Services Program, based at NASA Kennedy, manages the launch service for the mission.
For more details about the IMAP mission and updates on launch preparations, visit:
https://science.nasa.gov/mission/imap/
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Abbey Interrante
Headquarters, Washington
301-201-0124
abbey.a.interrante@nasa.gov
Sarah Frazier
Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
202-853-7191
sarah.frazier@nasa.gov
Leejay Lockhart
Kennedy Space Center, Fla.
321-747-8310
leejay.lockhart@nasa.gov
John Jones-Bateman
NOAA’s Satellite and Information Service, Silver Spring, Md.
202-242-0929
john.jones-bateman@noaa.gov
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Last Updated Aug 21, 2025 LocationNASA Headquarters Related Terms
IMAP (Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe) Carruthers Geocorona Observatory (GLIDE) Goddard Space Flight Center Heliophysics Heliophysics Division Kennedy Space Center Launch Services Program Science & Research Science Mission Directorate Space Weather
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By NASA
6 min read
NASA, IBM’s ‘Hot’ New AI Model Unlocks Secrets of Sun
This image from June 20, 2013 shows the bright light of a solar flare and an eruption of solar material shooting through the sun’s atmosphere, called a prominence eruption. Shortly thereafter, this same region of the sun sent a coronal mass ejection out into space — a phenomenon which can cause magnetic storms that degrade communication signals and cause unexpected electrical surges in power grids on Earth. NASA’s new heliophysics AI foundation model, Surya, can help predict these storms. NASA/Goddard/SDO NASA is turning up the heat in solar science with the launch of the Surya Heliophysics Foundational Model, an artificial intelligence (AI) model trained on 14 years of observations from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory.
Developed by NASA in partnership with IBM and others, Surya uses advances in AI to analyze vast amounts of solar data, helping scientists better understand solar eruptions and predict space weather that threatens satellites, power grids, and communication systems. The model can be used to provide early warnings to satellite operators and helps scientists predict how the Sun’s ultraviolet output affects Earth’s upper atmosphere.
Preliminary results show Surya is making strides in solar flare forecasting, a long-standing challenge in heliophysics. Surya, with its ability to generate visual predictions of solar flares two hours into the future, marks a major step towards the use of AI for operational space weather prediction. These initial results surpass existing benchmarks by 15%. By providing open access to the model on HuggingFace and the code on GitHub, NASA encourages the science and applications community to test and explore this AI model for innovative solutions that leverage the unique value of continuous, stable, long-duration datasets from the Solar Dynamics Observatory.
Illustrations of Solar Dynamics Observatory solar imagery used for training Surya: Solar coronal ultraviolet and extreme ultraviolet images from the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA) and solar surface velocity and magnetic field maps from the Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager (HMI). NASA/SDO The model’s success builds directly on the Solar Dynamics Observatory’s long-term database. Launched in 2010, NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory has provided an unbroken, high-resolution record of the Sun for nearly 15 years through capturing images every 12 seconds in multiple wavelengths, plus precise magnetic field measurements. This stable, well-calibrated dataset, spanning an entire solar cycle, is uniquely suited for training AI models like Surya, enabling them to detect subtle patterns in solar behavior that shorter datasets would miss.
Surya’s strength lies in its foundation model architecture, which learns directly from raw solar data. Unlike traditional AI systems that require extensive labeling, Surya can adapt quickly to new tasks and applications. Applications include tracking active regions, forecasting flare activity, predicting solar wind speed, and integrating data from other observatories including the joint NASA-ESA Solar and Heliospheric Observatory mission and NASA’s Parker Solar Probe.
“We are advancing data-driven science by embedding NASA’s deep scientific expertise into cutting-edge AI models,” said Kevin Murphy, chief science data officer at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “By developing a foundation model trained on NASA’s heliophysics data, we’re making it easier to analyze the complexities of the Sun’s behavior with unprecedented speed and precision. This model empowers broader understanding of how solar activity impacts critical systems and technologies that we all rely on here on Earth.”
These images compare the ground-truth data (right) with model output (center) for solar flares, which are the events behind most space weather. Surya’s prediction is very close to what happened in reality (right). These preliminary results suggest that Surya has learned enough solar physics to predict the structure and evolution of a solar flare by looking at its beginning phase. NASA/SDO/ODSI IMPACT AI Team Solar storms pose significant risks to our technology-dependent society. Powerful solar events energize Earth’s ionosphere, resulting in substantial GPS errors or complete signal loss to satellite communications. They also pose risks to power grids, as geomagnetically induced currents from coronal mass ejections can overload transformers and trigger widespread outages.
In commercial aviation, solar flares can disrupt radio communications and navigation systems while exposing high-altitude flights to increased radiation. The stakes are even higher for human spaceflight. Astronauts bound for the Moon or Mars may need to depend on precise predictions to shelter from intense radiation during solar particle events.
The Sun’s influence extends to the growing number of low Earth orbit satellites, including those that deliver global high-speed internet. As solar activity intensifies, it heats Earth’s upper atmosphere, increasing drag that slows satellites, pulls them from orbit, and causes premature reentry. Satellite operators often struggle to forecast where and when solar flares might affect these satellites.
The “ground truth” solar activity is shown on the top row. The bottom row shows solar activity predicted by Surya. NASA/SDO/ODSI IMPACT AI Team “Our society is built on technologies that are highly susceptible to space weather,” said Joseph Westlake, Heliophysics Division director at NASA Headquarters. “Just as we use meteorology to forecast Earth’s weather, space weather forecasts predict the conditions and events in the space environment that can affect Earth and our technologies. Applying AI to data from our heliophysics missions is a vital step in increasing our space weather defense to protect astronauts and spacecraft, power grids and GPS, and many other systems that power our modern world.”
While Surya is designed to study the Sun, its architecture and methodology are adaptable across scientific domains. From planetary science to Earth observation, the project lays the foundational infrastructure for similar AI efforts in diverse domains.
Surya is part of a broader NASA push to develop open-access, AI-powered science tools. Both the model and training datasets are freely available online to researchers, educators, and students worldwide, lowering barriers to participation and sparking new discoveries.
The process for creating Surya. Foundation models enhance the utility of NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory datasets and create a base for building new applications. NASA/ODSI IMPACT AI Team Surya’s training was supported in part by the National Artificial Intelligence Research Resource (NAIRR) Pilot, a National Science Foundation (NSF)-led initiative that provides researchers with access to advanced computing, datasets, and AI tools. The NAIRR Pilot brings together federal and industry resources, such as computing power from NVIDIA, to expand access to the infrastructure needed for cutting-edge AI research.
“This project shows how the NAIRR Pilot is uniting federal and industry AI resources to accelerate scientific breakthroughs,” said Katie Antypas, director of NSF’s Office of Advanced Cyberinfrastructure. “With support from NVIDIA and NSF, we’re not only enabling today’s research, we’re laying the groundwork for a national AI network to drive tomorrow’s discoveries.”
Surya is part of a larger effort championed and supported by NASA’s Office of the Chief Science Data Officer and Heliophysics Division, the NSF , and partnering universities to advance NASA’s scientific missions through innovative data science and AI models. Surya’s AI architecture was jointly developed by the Interagency Implementation and Advanced Concepts Team (IMPACT) under the Office of Data Science and Informatics at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama; IBM; and a collaborative science team.
The science team, assembled by NASA Headquarters, consisted of experts from the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, Texas; the University of Alabama in Huntsville in Huntsville, Alabama; the University of Colorado Boulder in Boulder, Colorado; Georgia State University in Atlanta, Georgia; Princeton University in Princeton, New Jersey; NASA’s SMD’s Heliophysics Division; NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland; NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California; and the SETI Institute in Mountain View, California.
For a behind-the-scenes dive into Surya’s architecture, industry and academic collaborations, challenges behind developing the model, read the blog post on NASA’s Science Data Portal:
https://science.data.nasa.gov/features-events/inside-surya-solar-ai-model
For more information about NASA’s strategy of developing foundation models for science, visit:
https://science.nasa.gov/artificial-intelligence-science
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Last Updated Aug 20, 2025 Related Terms
Science & Research Artificial Intelligence (AI) Heliophysics Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) The Sun The Sun & Solar Physics Explore More
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By NASA
4 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
NuCLEUS, developed by Interstellar Lab, is an autonomous system that grows microgreens, vegetables, and more for astronauts to eat in space.Interstellar Lab NASA invests in technologies that have the potential to revolutionize space exploration, including the way astronauts live in space. Through the Deep Space Food Challenge, NASA, in partnership with CSA (Canadian Space Agency), sought novel food production systems that could provide long-duration human space exploration missions with safe, nutritious, and tasty food. Three winners selected last summer are now taking their technology to new heights – figuratively and literally – through commercial partnerships.
Interstellar Lab of Merritt Island, Florida, won the challenge’s $750,000 grand prize for its food production system NuCLEUS (Nutritional Closed-Loop Eco-Unit System), by demonstrating an autonomous operation growing microgreens, vegetables, and mushrooms, as well as sustaining insects for use in an astronaut’s diet. To address the requirements of the NASA challenge, NuCLEUS includes an irrigation system that sustains crop growth with minimal human intervention. This end-to-end system supplies fresh ingredients to support astronauts’ health and happiness, with an eye toward what the future of dining on deep space missions to Mars and the Moon may look like.
Since the close of the challenge, Interstellar Lab has partnered with aerospace company Vast to integrate a spinoff of NuCLEUS, called Eden 1.0, on Haven-1, a planned commercial space station. Eden 1.0 is a plant growth unit designed to conduct research on plants in a microgravity environment using functions directly stemming from NuCLEUS.
“The NASA Deep Space Food Challenge was a pivotal catalyst for Interstellar Lab, driving us to refine our NuCLEUS system and directly shaping the development of Eden 1.0, setting the stage for breakthroughs in plant growth research to sustain life both in space and on Earth,” said Barbara Belvisi, founder and CEO of Interstellar Lab.
Fuanyi Fobellah, one of the “Simunauts” from The Ohio State University who tested food production technologies as part of the Deep Space Food Challenge, removes a cooked omelet from the SATED appliance.NASA/Savannah Bullard Team SATED (Safe Appliance, Tidy, Efficient & Delicious) of Boulder, Colorado, earned a $250,000 second prize for its namesake appliance, which creates an artificial gravitational force that presses food ingredients against its heated inner surface for cooking. The technology was developed by Jim Sears, who entered the contest as a one-person team and has since founded the small business SATED Space LLC.
At the challenge finale event, the technology was introduced to the team of world-renowned chef and restaurant owner, José Andrés. The SATED technology is undergoing testing with the José Andrés Group, which could add to existing space food recipes that include lemon cake, pizza, and quiche. The SATED team also is exploring partnerships to expand the list of ingredients compatible with the appliance, such as synthetic cooking oils safe for space.
Delicious food was a top priority in the Deep Space Food Challenge. Sears noted the importance of food that is more than mere sustenance. “When extremely high performance is required, and the situations are demanding, tough, and lonely, the thing that pulls it all together and makes people operate at their best is eating fresh cooked food in community.”
Team Nolux won a $250,000 second-place prize for its Nolux food system that uses artificial photosynthesis to grow ingredients that could be used by astronauts in space.OSU/CFAES/Kenneth Chamberlain Team Nolux, formed from faculty members, graduate, and undergraduate students from the University of California, Riverside, also won a $250,000 second prize for its artificial photosynthesis system. The Nolux system – whose name means “no light” – grows plant and fungal-based foods in a dark chamber using acetate to chemically stimulate photosynthesis without light, a capability that could prove valuable in space with limited access to sunlight.
Some members of the Nolux team are now commercializing select aspects of the technology developed during the challenge. These efforts are being pursued through a newly incorporated company focused on refining the technology and exploring market applications.
A competition inspired by NASA’s Deep Space Food Challenge will open this fall.
Stay tuned for more information: https://www.nasa.gov/prizes-challenges-and-crowdsourcing/centennial-challenges/
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By NASA
3 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
NASA now is accepting proposals from student teams for a contest to design, build, and test rovers for Moon and Mars exploration through Sept. 15.
Known as the Human Exploration Rover Challenge, student rovers should be capable of traversing a course while completing mission tasks. The challenge handbook has guidelines for remote-controlled and human-powered divisions.
The cover of the HERC 2026 handbook, which is now available online. “Last year, we saw a lot of success with the debut of our remote-controlled division and the addition of middle school teams,” said Vemitra Alexander, the activity lead for the challenge at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. “We’re looking forward to building on both our remote-controlled and human-powered divisions with new challenges for the students, including rover automation.”
This year’s mission mimics future Artemis missions to the lunar surface. Teams are challenged to test samples of soil, water, and air from sites along a half-mile course that includes a simulated field of asteroid debris, boulders, erosion ruts, crevasses, and an ancient streambed. Human-powered rover teams will play the role of two astronauts in a lunar terrain vehicle and must use a custom-built task tool to manually collect samples needed for testing. Remote-controlled rover teams will act as a pressurized rover, and the rover itself will contain the tools necessary to collect and test samples onboard.
“NASA’s Human Exploration Rover Challenge creates opportunities for students to develop the skills they need to be successful STEM professionals,” said Alexander. “This challenge will help students see themselves in the mission and give them the hands-on experience needed to advance technology and become the workforce of tomorrow.”
Seventy-five teams comprised of more than 500 students participated in the agency’s 31st rover challenge in 2025. Participants represented 35 colleges and universities, 38 high schools, and two middle schools, across 20 states, Puerto Rico, and 16 nations around the world.
The 32nd annual competition will culminate with an in-person event April 9-11, 2026, at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center near NASA Marshall.
The rover challenge is one of NASA’s Artemis Student Challenges, reflecting the goals of the Artemis campaign, which seeks to explore the Moon for scientific discovery, technology advancement, and to learn how to live and work on another world as we prepare for human missions to Mars. NASA uses such challenges to encourage students to pursue degrees and careers in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.
Since its inception in 1994, more than 15,000 students have participated in the rover challenge – with many former students now working at NASA or within the aerospace industry.
To learn more about HERC, visit:
https://www.nasa.gov/roverchallenge/
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Last Updated Aug 15, 2025 EditorBeth RidgewayLocationMarshall Space Flight Center Related Terms
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