Preparing IMAP, SWFO-L1, & Carruthers Missions for Launch | NASA Kennedy
Technicians at the Astrotech Space Operations Facility near NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida encapsulate NASA’s Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP), along with the agency’s Carruthers Geocorona Observatory and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Space Weather Follow On–Lagrange 1 (SWFO-L1) spacecraft on Tuesday, Sept. 16, 2025, inside a SpaceX Falcon 9 payload fairing.
Workers transport NASA’s IMAP (Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe) spacecraft along with the agency’s Carruthers Geocorona Observatory and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Space Weather Follow On–Lagrange 1 (SWFO-L1) satellite late on Wednesday, Sept. 17, 2025, through early Thursday, Sept. 18, 2025, from the Astrotech Space Operations Facility in Titusville Florida, to the SpaceX hangar at Launch Complex 39A at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
IMAP illustration
Illustrations of SWFO-L1, IMAP & Carruthers Geocorona Observatory spacecraft
Milestones met and rocket getting set! 🚀
Crews have transported the IMAP, SWFO-L1, and Carruthers encapsulated assembly! It took several hours to convoy the delicate hardware to the SpaceX hangar, where the team will then mate it to the Falcon 9 rocket.
The missions will each focus on different effects of the solar wind—the continuous stream of particles emitted by the Sun—and space weather—the changing conditions in space driven by the Sun—from their origins at the Sun to their farthest reaches billions of miles away at the edge of our solar system.
NASA, SpaceX, and IMAP mission managers have conducted the Flight Readiness Review to certify its readiness to initiate final launch preparation activities.
Launch is targeted for 7:32 a.m. EDT, Tuesday, Sept. 23, 2025, from Launch Complex 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center!
The Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP) will soon be on its mission to explore and map the heliosphere—the invisible cosmic shield surrounding our solar system—and to answer some great unknowns about how particles accelerate in the solar wind.
Press Release "Princeton in space: IMAP prepares for launch": https://www.princeton.edu/news/2025/09/17/princeton-space-imap-prepares-launch
NASA’s Carruthers Geocorona Observatory is a small satellite that will observe Earth’s outermost atmospheric layer, the exosphere. It will image the faint glow of ultraviolet light from this region, called the geocorona, to better understand how space weather impacts our planet. The Carruthers mission continues the legacy of the Apollo era, expanding on measurements first taken during Apollo 16.
The SWFO-L1 spacecraft will monitor space weather and detect solar storms in advance, serving as an early warning beacon for potentially disruptive space weather, helping safeguard Earth’s critical infrastructure and technological-dependent industries. The SWFO-L1 spacecraft is the first NOAA observatory designed specifically for and fully dedicated to continuous, operational space weather observations.
Image Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins APL/Ed Whitman/Kim Shiflett (NASA)
Image Dates: Sept. 16-21, 2025
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