Don Mitchell, far left, Cassini spacecraft instrument scientist, IBEX co-Investigator, Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md., answers questions on findings made by NASA's Interstellar Boundary Explorer, IBEX, at NASA Headquarters in Washington, Thursday, Oct. 10, 2009. Mitchell is joined by IBEX mission colleagues David McComas, far right, IBEX spacecraft principal investigator and senior executive director, Space Science and Engineering Division, Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio; Eric Christian, IBEX deputy mission scientist, NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.; Rosine Lallement, senior scientist at the French National Center for Scientific Research in Paris; Lindsay Bartolone, second from left, lead of Education and Public Outreach at the Adler Planetarium in Chicago. Photo Credit: (NASA/Carla Cioffi)

Eric Christian, center, IBEX deputy mission scientist, NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., discusses findings made by NASA's Interstellar Boundary Explorer, IBEX, at NASA Headquarters in Washington, Thursday, Oct. 10, 2009. Photo Credit: (NASA/Carla Cioffi)

David McComas, IMAP principal investigator, Princeton University, participates 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. 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 three 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.

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.