NASA, NOAA, and mission leaders participate in a science briefing on NASA’s IMAP (Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe) mission and its two rideshares – NASA’s exosphere-studying Carruthers Geocorona Observatory and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Space Weather Follow On–Lagrange 1 (SWFO-L1) observatory – at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Sunday, Sept. 21, 2025. From left are: Sarah Frazier, NASA Communications; Joe Westlake, director, Heliophysics Division, NASA Headquarters in Washington; David McComas, IMAP principal investigator, Princeton University; Lara Waldrop, Carruthers Geocorona Observatory principal investigator, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign; Jamie Favors, director, Space Weather Program, Heliophysics Division, NASA Headquarters; Clinton Wallace, director, NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center; James Spann, senior scientist, NOAA Office of Space Weather Observations. NASA’s IMAP will use 10 science instruments to study and map the heliosphere, a vast magnetic bubble surrounding the Sun protecting our solar system from radiation incoming from interstellar space. The missions will orbit the Sun near Lagrange point 1, about one million miles from Earth. Launch is targeted for 7:32 a.m. EDT, Tuesday, Sept. 23, from Launch Complex 39A at NASA Kennedy.

Employees at the Space Power Facility (SPF) at Plum Brook Station tested a new generation of Atlas/Centaur launch vehicles. General Dynamics conducted the tests December 22 and January 3, 1990 to determine the flight readiness of a new 14-foot diameter payload fairing. The fairing will accommodate new weather satellites, the U.S. Air Force Combined Release and Radiation Effects (CRRES) satellite, and other future payloads. At a simulated altitude of 85,000 feet, the cone-shaped fairing separated in half from a hinge at the bottom. Half of the fairing was then released from the test stack and recovered in a catch-net. The payload fairing separations were the first tests of major space hardware to be conducted in the SPF in more than 15 years.

Aerial Vies of NASA Glenn Research Center, Neil A. Armstrong Test Facility. At the time this photograph was taken, the site was known as Plum Brook Station.