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International Partnership Powers IMAP Mission Through Collaboration [1]

['Desiree Apodaca']

Date: 2025-08-08

International Partnership Powers IMAP Mission Through Collaboration

The heliosphere, the magnetic bubble inflated by the solar wind protecting our solar system, holds clues to understanding how life on Earth is possible. Unlocking these mysteries has global implications, making international collaboration both invaluable and essential.

NASA’s Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP) mission, launching no earlier than September 2025, embraces this global perspective by bringing together scientists and engineers from 27 institutions worldwide. The mission will use 10 advanced instruments to investigate two of the most fundamental questions in heliophysics: how particles are energized in space and how the solar wind interacts with the interstellar medium — the galactic material that surrounds our solar system.

To meet these remarkable goals, the IMAP mission draws upon strong international partnerships across six countries: the United Kingdom, Poland, Germany, Switzerland, South Korea, and Japan.

“International collaboration such as this makes our mission even stronger,” said Dr. David J. McComas, IMAP’s principal investigator and a professor at Princeton University in New Jersey.

A key international contribution is the magnetometer instrument, called MAG, which was designed and built at Imperial College London under an agreement between NASA and the UK Space Agency. The MAG instrument, mounted on a deployable boom, will measure the interplanetary magnetic field around the spacecraft, enabling scientists to study the waves and turbulences that can scatter charged particles found inside our solar system. Along with members from Imperial College London, post-launch science and instrumentation support will also be provided by the University of Central Lancashire in the UK.

MAG Instrument Lead Tim Horbury, left, and Deputy Lead Helen O’Brien, right, in the clean room at Imperial College London with the MAG instrument before installation on the NASA’s Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP) mission. NASA/Imperial/Hailey Dunning

“At Imperial, we’ve really enjoyed becoming part of the IMAP team, and everyone made us so welcome,” said Dr. Tim Horbury, MAG instrument lead at Imperial College London. “We’ve learned a huge amount from working with all the project partners. There’s such a great sense of commitment to the mission, and there is a huge depth of technical know-how.”

Another significant international contribution is the GLOWS (Global Solar Wind Structure) instrument, designed and built by the Space Research Centre of the Polish Academy of Sciences (CBK PAN). This is the first research instrument fully designed and developed in Poland for a NASA mission. The University of Bochum in Germany provided additional technical support.

“I’ve worked closely with our colleagues in Poland for nearly two decades,” said McComas. “Their contributions are invaluable.”

Emory Toomey and Hunter McNamara of the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Md., Roman Wawrzaszek of the Space Research Center (CBK PAN) in Warsaw, Poland, and Joe Minty of APL prepare the Global Solar Wind Structure (GLOWS) instrument for installation onto the IMAP observatory. NASA/Johns Hopkins APL/Princeton/Ed Whitman

Support from global institutions extends beyond instrument design and fabrication. Switzerland’s University of Bern played a key role in contributing to both the IMAP-Lo and IMAP-Hi instruments, both built in the U.S. Dr. Peter Wurz, co-investigator and calibration lead for IMAP-Lo, also led work on the IMAP-Hi collimator at Bern. IMAP-Lo uses detection technology developed at the University of Bern.

“We are very happy to contribute to the scientific instrumentation of IMAP,” said Wurz. “Building hardware for space flight is always exciting, especially working within an international team of experts and learning from the expertise of different laboratories. Sometimes this seems like a wonder, when the hardware goes into space, but really is the result of the dedication of all people working in the team.”

Michela Gargano, project manager and Dr. Jonathan Gasser, calibration test engineer, both of University of Bern, finish the installation of the ABM device, built at U Bern, in the Space Physics Lab at Princeton as part of the calibration campaign of the IMAP-Lo instrument. NASA/University of Bern

Following launch, the GLOWS and MAG teams will provide ongoing support in science data and analysis, while scientists from the University of Bonn in Germany, University of Bern, and Nagoya University in Japan will bring global perspectives to data analysis and interpretation as science co-investigators. In addition, the University of Kiel in Germany and the Korea Aerospace Administration Korea Space Weather Center in South Korea will provide downlink for a near-real time data stream called I-ALiRT, short for IMAP Active Link for Real Time.

These partnerships enhance the scientific rigor of the IMAP mission by incorporating a wide-ranging scope of expertise and approaches. International partnerships ensure that multiple perspectives are used in analyzing the mission’s data — critical for advancing discovery and building foundations for future missions with global partners.

Princeton University professor David J. McComas leads the IMAP mission with an international team of 27 partner institutions. The Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland built the spacecraft and will operate the mission. The IMAP mission is the fifth mission in NASA’s Solar Terrestrial Probes (STP) Program portfolio. The Explorers and Heliophysics Project Division at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages the STP Program for the agency’s Heliophysics Division of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate.

By Andi Pearl

Princeton University

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[1] Url: https://science.nasa.gov/blogs/imap/2025/08/08/international-partnership-powers-imap-mission-through-collaboration/

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