CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — NASA is preparing to launch the Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe, or IMAP, aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.
The mission, which launces at 7 30 a.m. Wednesday, will study space weather and cosmic radiation and their impacts on Earth, astronauts and future space exploration.
“It can power the very beautiful aurora, the northern and southern lights that we’re seeing quite a lot of right now because the sun is so active and that can have effects for astronauts as they are traveling both on the International Space Station and then looking forward to the Artemis 2 and 3 missions,” said Nicky Fox, NASA associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate.
IMAP will launch alongside NASA’s Carruthers Geocorona Observatory and NOAA’s Space Weather Follow On-Lagrange 1 mission.
“All three of them are going out to the L1 point. It’s about a million miles upstream of the Earth, so you travel towards the Sun a million miles and there they will sit. That’s where the Sun and the Earth’s gravity cancel out, so it’s a pretty stable area to hang out and take this incredible data,” Fox said.
It will take a couple of months before instruments are up and running.
“IMAP will be providing critical data for our astronauts’ safety, also providing information about how our technology is impacted by space weather, things like power grids, spacecraft in orbit, even GPS signals,” Fox added.
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