The IMAP Observatory Overview

NASA's Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP) mission simultaneously investigates the acceleration of particles expelled from the Sun, and how the interaction of these particles with the local interstellar medium shapes our heliospheric boundary. The IMAP observatory makes critical measurements that facilitate this ground breaking science by incorporating a spin stabilized spacecraft orbiting around the first Sun-Earth Lagrange point, L1, with a payload comprised of ten unique instruments, making comprehensive and synergistic observations of solar wind, suprathermal, energetic particles and magnetic field, energetic neutral atoms mapping the boundary of our heliosphere, as well as interstellar neutral atoms and dust. This paper provides details on the design, integration, and testing of the IMAP observatory.

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Publication Details

Journal
Space Science Reviews
Published
2026-01-29
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11214-026-01272-z
Primary Topic
Solar and Space Plasma Dynamics
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
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article

The IMAP Observatory Overview

J. Scherrer, Stewart Bushman, Andrew Driesman, Cristina Vigil et al.
Space Science Reviews
Solar and Space Plasma Dynamics
article

The IMAP Observatory Overview

J. Scherrer, Stewart Bushman, Andrew Driesman, Cristina Vigil, Daniel E. Matlin, Lew Roufberg, Ellen Coleman, Faith Kujawa, Corinne Lippe, S. Weidner, Marsha R. Schwinger, M. Gkioulidou, C. W. Drabenstadt, S. Kubota, Michael J. Cully, Michael G. Dauberman, Christina M. Collura, E. W. Smith, J. Hahn, Brian M. Duffy, Christopher Krupiarz, Fazle Siddique, Andrew Gerger, D. A. Eng, Justin Kelman, D. Jones, E. R. Christian, R. Smith, S. Hefter, C. J. Ercol, M. Tapley, D. Rodriguez, K. P. Hegarty, M. Haque, N. A. Schwadron, A. Shin, S. Vernon, A. Dubill, D. Myers, E. Rivera Sepulveda, R. Hall, C. Monaco, D. J. McComas
article en

Abstract

NASA's Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP) mission simultaneously investigates the acceleration of particles expelled from the Sun, and how the interaction of these particles with the local interstellar medium shapes our heliospheric boundary. The IMAP observatory makes critical measurements that facilitate this ground breaking science by incorporating a spin stabilized spacecraft orbiting around the first Sun-Earth Lagrange point, L1, with a payload comprised of ten unique instruments, making comprehensive and synergistic observations of solar wind, suprathermal, energetic particles and magnetic field, energetic neutral atoms mapping the boundary of our heliosphere, as well as interstellar neutral atoms and dust. This paper provides details on the design, integration, and testing of the IMAP observatory.

Space Science ReviewsVol. 222(1)
Southwest Research Institute (US), University of New Hampshire (US), Princeton University (US), Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (US), Heliophysics (US)
Openalex Percentile: Top 71%
Solar and Space Plasma Dynamics
DOIOpen Access PDFOpenAlex
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