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NASA’s SPHEREx Takes First Images, Preps to Study Millions of Galaxies
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By NASA
6 min read
NASA’s IMAP Mission to Study Boundaries of Our Home in Space
Summary
NASA’s new Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe, or IMAP, will launch no earlier than Tuesday, Sept. 23 to study the heliosphere, a giant shield created by the Sun. The mission will chart the heliosphere’s boundaries to help us better understand the protection it offers life on Earth and how it changes with the Sun’s activity. The IMAP mission will also provide near real-time measurements of the solar wind, data that can be used to improve models predicting the impacts of space weather ranging from power-line disruptions to loss of satellites, to the health of voyaging astronauts. Space is a dangerous place — one that NASA continues to explore for the benefit of all. It’s filled with radiation and high-energy particles that can damage DNA and circuit boards alike. Yet life endures in our solar system in part because of the heliosphere, a giant bubble created by the Sun that extends far beyond Neptune’s orbit.
With NASA’s new Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe, or IMAP, launching no earlier than Tuesday, Sept. 23, humanity is set to get a better look at the heliosphere than ever before. The mission will chart the boundaries of the heliosphere to help us better understand the protection it offers and how it changes with the Sun’s activity. The IMAP mission will also provide near real-time measurements of space weather conditions essential for the Artemis campaign and deep space travel.
“With IMAP, we’ll push forward the boundaries of knowledge and understanding of our place not only in the solar system, but our place in the galaxy as a whole,” said Patrick Koehn, IMAP program scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “As humanity expands and explores beyond Earth, missions like IMAP will add new pieces of the space weather puzzle that fills the space between Parker Solar Probe at the Sun and the Voyagers beyond the heliopause.”
Download this video from NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio.
Domain of Sun
The heliosphere is created by the constant outflow of material and magnetic fields from the Sun called the solar wind. As the solar system moves through the Milky Way, the solar wind’s interaction with interstellar material carves out the bubble of the heliosphere. Studying the heliosphere helps scientists understand our home in space and how it came to be habitable.
As a modern-day celestial cartographer, IMAP will map the boundary of our heliosphere and study how the heliosphere interacts with the local galactic neighborhood beyond. It will chart the vast range of particles, dust, ultraviolet light, and magnetic fields in interplanetary space, to investigate the energization of charged particles from the Sun and their interaction with interstellar space.
The IMAP mission builds on NASA’s Voyager and IBEX (Interstellar Boundary Explorer) missions. In 2012 and 2018, the twin Voyager spacecraft became the first human-made objects to cross the heliosphere’s boundary and send back measurements from interstellar space. It gave scientists a snapshot of what the boundary looked like and where it was in two specific locations. While IBEX has been mapping the heliosphere, it has left many questions unanswered. With 30 times higher resolution and faster imaging, IMAP will help fill in the unknowns about the heliosphere.
Energetic neutral atoms: atomic messengers from our heliosphere’s edge
Of IMAP’s 10 instruments, three will investigate the boundaries of the heliosphere by collecting energetic neutral atoms, or ENAs. Many ENAs originate as positively charged particles released by the Sun but after racing across the solar system, these particles run into particles in interstellar space. In this collision, some of those positively charged particles become neutral, and an energetic neutral atom is born. The interaction also redirects the new ENAs, and some ricochet back toward the Sun.
Charged particles are forced to follow magnetic field lines, but ENAs travel in a straight line, unaffected by the twists, turns, and turbulences in the magnetic fields that permeate space and shape the boundary of the heliosphere. This means scientists can track where these atomic messengers came from and study distant regions of space from afar. The IMAP mission will use the ENAs it collects near Earth to trace back their origins and construct maps of the boundaries of the heliosphere, which would otherwise be invisible from such a distance.
“With its comprehensive state-of-the-art suite of instruments, IMAP will advance our understanding of two fundamental questions of how particles are energized and transported throughout the heliosphere and how the heliosphere itself interacts with our galaxy,” said Shri Kanekal, IMAP mission scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
The IMAP mission will study the heliosphere, our home in space. NASA/Princeton University/Patrick McPike Space weather: monitoring solar wind
The IMAP mission will also support near real-time observations of the solar wind and energetic solar particles, which can produce hazardous conditions in the space environment near Earth. From its location at Lagrange Point 1, about 1 million miles from Earth toward the Sun, IMAP will provide around a half hour’s warning of dangerous particles headed toward our planet. The mission’s data will help with the development of models that can predict the impacts of space weather ranging from power-line disruptions to loss of satellites.
“The IMAP mission will provide very important information for deep space travel, where astronauts will be directly exposed to the dangers of the solar wind,” said David McComas, IMAP principal investigator at Princeton University.
Cosmic dust: hints of the galaxy beyond
In addition to measuring ENAs and solar wind particles, IMAP will also make direct measurements of interstellar dust — clumps of particles originating outside of the solar system that are smaller than a grain of sand. This space dust is largely composed of rocky or carbon-rich grains leftover from the aftermath of supernova explosions.
The specific elemental composition of this space dust is a postmark for where it comes from in the galaxy. Studying cosmic dust can provide insight into the compositions of stars from far outside our solar system. It will also help scientists significantly advance what we know about these basic cosmic building materials and provide information on what the material between stars is made of.
David McComas leads the mission with an international team of 27 partner institutions. APL is managing the development phase and building the spacecraft, and it will operate the mission. IMAP is the fifth mission in NASA’s Solar Terrestrial Probes Program portfolio. The Explorers and Heliophysics Projects Division at NASA Goddard manages the STP Program for the agency’s Heliophysics Division of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. NASA’s Launch Services Program, based at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, manages the launch service for the mission.
By Mara Johnson-Groh
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
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Last Updated Sep 17, 2025 Related Terms
Goddard Space Flight Center Heliophysics Heliophysics Division IMAP (Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe) Missions NASA Centers & Facilities NASA Directorates Science & Research Science Mission Directorate Explore More
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5 Min Read NASA’s X-59 Moves Toward First Flight at Speed of Safety
NASA’s X-59 quiet supersonic research aircraft is seen at dawn with firetrucks and safety personnel nearby during a hydrazine safety check at U.S. Air Force Plant 42 in Palmdale, California, on Aug. 18, 2025. The operation highlights the extensive precautions built into the aircraft’s safety procedures for a system that serves as a critical safeguard, ensuring the engine can be restarted in flight as the X-59 prepares for its first flight. Credits: Lockheed Martin As NASA’s one-of-a-kind X-59 quiet supersonic research aircraft approaches first flight, its team is mapping every step from taxi and takeoff to cruising and landing – and their decision-making is guided by safety.
First flight will be a lower-altitude loop at about 240 mph to check system integration, kicking off a phase of flight testing focused on verifying the aircraft’s airworthiness and safety. During subsequent test flights, the X-59 will go higher and faster, eventually exceeding the speed of sound. The aircraft is designed to fly supersonic while generating a quiet thump rather than a loud sonic boom.
To help ensure that first flight – and every flight after that – will begin and end safely, engineers have layered protection into the aircraft.
The X-59’s Flight Test Instrumentation System (FTIS) serves as one of its primary record keepers, collecting and transmitting audio, video, data from onboard sensors, and avionics information – all of which NASA will track across the life of the aircraft.
“We record 60 different streams of data with over 20,000 parameters on board,” said Shedrick Bessent, NASA X-59 instrumentation engineer. “Before we even take off, it’s reassuring to know the system has already seen more than 200 days of work.”
Through ground tests and system evaluations, the system has already generated more than 8,000 files over 237 days of recording. That record provides a detailed history that helps engineers verify the aircraft’s readiness for flight.
Maintainers perform a hydrazine safety check on the agency’s quiet supersonic X-59 aircraft at U.S. Air Force Plant 42 in Palmdale, California, on Aug. 18, 2025. Hydrazine is a highly toxic chemical, but it serves as a critical backup to restart the engine in flight, if necessary, and is one of several safety features being validated ahead of the aircraft’s first flight.Credits: Lockheed Martin “There’s just so much new technology on this aircraft, and if a system like FTIS can offer a bit of relief by showing us what’s working – with reliability and consistency – that reduces stress and uncertainty,” Bessent said. “I think that helps the project just as much as it helps our team.”
The aircraft also uses a digital fly-by-wire system that will keep the aircraft stable and limit unsafe maneuvers. First developed in the 1970s at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California, digital fly-by-wire replaced how aircraft were flown, moving away from traditional cables and pulleys to computerized flight controls and actuators.
On the X-59, the pilot’s inputs – such as movement of the stick or throttle – are translated into electronic signals and decoded by a computer. Those signals are then sent through fiber-optic wires to the aircraft’s surfaces, like its wings and tail.
Additionally, the aircraft uses multiple computers that back each other up and keep the system operating. If one fails, another takes over. The same goes for electrical and hydraulic systems, which also have independent backup systems to ensure the aircraft can fly safely.
Onboard batteries back up the X-59’s hydraulic and electrical systems, with thermal batteries driving the electric pump that powers hydraulics. Backing up the engine is an emergency restart system that uses hydrazine, a highly reactive liquid fuel. In the unlikely event of a loss of power, the hydrazine system would restart the engine in flight. The system would help restore power so the pilot could stabilize or recover the aircraft.
Maintainers perform a hydrazine safety check on NASA’s quiet supersonic X-59 aircraft at U.S. Air Force Plant 42 in Palmdale, California, on Aug. 18, 2025. Hydrazine is a highly toxic chemical, but it serves as a critical backup to restart the engine in flight, if necessary, which is one of several safety features being validated ahead of the aircraft’s first flight. Credits: Lockheed Martin Protective Measures
Behind each of these systems is a team of engineers, technicians, safety and quality assurance experts, and others. The team includes a crew chief responsible for maintenance on the aircraft and ensuring the aircraft is ready for flight.
“I try to always walk up and shake the crew chief’s hand,” said Nils Larson, NASA X-59 lead test pilot. “Because it’s not your airplane – it’s the crew chief’s airplane – and they’re trusting you with it. You’re just borrowing it for an hour or two, then bringing it back and handing it over.”
Larson, set to serve as pilot for first flight, may only be borrowing the aircraft from the X-59’s crew chiefs – Matt Arnold from X-59 contractor Lockheed Martin and Juan Salazar from NASA – but plenty of the aircraft’s safety systems were designed specifically to protect the pilot in flight.
The X-59’s life support system is designed to deliver oxygen through the pilot’s mask to compensate for the decreased atmospheric pressure at the aircraft’s cruising altitude of 55,000 feet – altitudes more than twice as high as that of a typical airliner. In order to withstand high-altitude flight, Larson will also wear a counter-pressure garment, or g-suit, similar to what fighter pilots wear.
In the unlikely event it’s needed, the X-59 also features an ejection seat and canopy adapted from a U.S. Air Force T-38 trainer, which comes equipped with essentials like a first aid kit, radio, and water. Due to the design, build, and test rigor put into the X-59, the ejection seat is a safety measure.
All these systems form a network of safety, adding confidence to the pilot and engineers as they approach to the next milestone – first flight.
“There’s a lot of trust that goes into flying something new,” Larson said. “You’re trusting the engineers, the maintainers, the designers – everyone who has touched the aircraft. And if I’m not comfortable, I’m not getting in. But if they trust the aircraft, and they trust me in it, then I’m all in.”
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Last Updated Sep 12, 2025 EditorDede DiniusContactNicolas Cholulanicolas.h.cholula@nasa.govLocationArmstrong Flight Research Center Related Terms
Armstrong Flight Research Center Advanced Air Vehicles Program Aeronautics Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate Ames Research Center Glenn Research Center Langley Research Center Low Boom Flight Demonstrator Quesst (X-59) Supersonic Flight Explore More
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