(ORDO NEWS) — NASA‘s Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP) spacecraft has passed a critical design review and is on track for a scheduled launch in 2025.
The Southwestern Research Institute (SwRI) operates the payload department and provides the Compact Dual Ion Composition Experiment (CoDICE) scientific instrument.
SwRI also participates in other mission instrument teams that will study the interaction between the solar wind and the interstellar medium, as well as the fundamental processes of particle acceleration in space.
“IMAP will help us better understand how our Sun interacts with the rest of the solar system,” said Susan Pope, SwRI director of space instrumentation and IMAP payload manager.
“IMAP will give us a more complete picture of the interaction between the interstellar medium and the solar wind, providing a better understanding of our place in the universe.”
IMAP is designed to help researchers better understand the edge of the heliosphere. The heliosphere is a magnetic bubble created by the solar wind, a constant stream of particles from the sun.
The bubble protects the solar system by limiting the amount of harmful cosmic radiation that enters the heliosphere. IMAP instruments will collect and analyze particles that pass through the barrier.
In addition, the mission will study the fundamental processes that accelerate particles throughout the heliosphere and beyond. The resulting energetic particles and cosmic rays could harm astronauts and space technology.
The Institute provides the CoDICE instrument, which combines the capabilities of several instruments into one patented sensor.
CoDICE will measure the distribution and composition of interstellar particles that pass through the “heliospheric” filter.
It will also characterize solar wind ions, as well as the mass and composition of high-energy solar particles associated with flares and coronal mass ejections.
SwRI is also involved in the development of the IMAP-Hi and IMAP-Lo instruments and builds high voltage power supplies for the Solar Wind Electron (SWE) instrument and the Global Solar Wind Structure (GLOWS) instrument.
SWE will measure the distribution of thermal electrons in the solar wind, while GLOWS will observe the structure of the solar wind.
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