The primary mission of NASA’s IMAP is to study the boundary of the Sun’s heliosphere using its suite of 10 instruments.
Elon Musk’s SpaceX on Wednesday launched its signature Falcon 9 rocket on a rideshare mission carrying three scientific spacecraft, including NASA’s Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP).
This marks the 13th mission that SpaceX has launched for NASA since 2016. The primary mission of IMAP is to study the boundary of the Sun’s heliosphere using its suite of 10 instruments, providing new insights into how solar wind and cosmic rays interact with the solar system.
On Stocktwits, retail sentiment around SpaceX, which isn’t publicly traded, trended in ‘neutral’ territory, but chatter was at ‘extremely high’ levels.
Also aboard are NASA’s Carruthers Geocorona Observatory, which will track ultraviolet light from Earth’s geocorona, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Space Weather Follow On Lagrange 1 (SWFO-L1), designed to monitor solar activity that can affect satellites and power grids.
All three spacecraft will travel to Lagrange Point 1, located approximately 1.5 million kilometers from Earth, positioned between the Earth and the Sun. The launch, originally scheduled for September 23, was delayed to allow for final mission preparations.
SpaceX launched the mission using Falcon 9 booster B1096, making this its second flight after lifting Amazon’s Project Kuiper KF-01 satellites in July. The company confirmed the first stage successfully landed on the droneship ‘Just Read the Instructions’.
The deployment of the three spacecraft is scheduled to begin approximately 1 hour and 23 minutes after liftoff, with each jettison separated by about seven minutes, SpaceX stated. NASA expects to acquire a signal from the IMAP spacecraft approximately 10 minutes after release, around 9:03 a.m. ET, though the timing remains approximate.
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