NASA’s IMAP Arrives at NASA Marshall For Testing in XRCF

These photos and timelapse show NASA’s IMAP mission being loaded into the thermal vacuum chamber of NASA Marshall Space Flight Center’s X-Ray and Cryogenic Facility (XRCF) in Huntsville, Alabama. IMAP arrived at Marshall March 18 and was loaded into the chamber March 19. IMAP will undergo testing such as dramatic temperature changes to simulate the harsh environment of space. The XRCF’s vacuum chamber is is 20 feet in diameter and 60 feet long making it one of the largest across NASA. The IMAP mission is a modern-day celestial cartographer that will map the solar system by studying the heliosphere, a giant bubble created by the Sun’s solar wind that surrounds our solar system and protects it from harmful interstellar radiation. Photos and video courtesy of Ed Whitman from Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Laboratory. For more information, contact NASA Marshall’s Office of Communications at 256-544-0034.