NASA Awards SpaceX a $109.4 Million Interstellar Mapping Contract
NASA announced Friday that it has awarded SpaceX a $109.4 million contract to launch its Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP), along with four secondary payloads, on a mission to investigate the magnetic barrier surrounding our solar system in October 2024.
The IMAP spacecraft will travel to Lagrange Point 1 (L1) between the Earth and the Sun, and from there examine the flow of particles from the Sun (the "solar wind") to outer space. After passing all the solar system's planets, the solar wind eventually collides with, is contained by, and excludes competing solar winds from other solar systems, forming a protective barrier around the solar system known as the "heliosphere." It is this heliosphere that diminishes the amount of cosmic radiation entering the solar system and keeps it from eventually hitting Earth.
Image source: NASA.
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