IMAP & Others launch thread

submitted by edited
Scheduled for (UTC) 2025-09-24, 11:30
Scheduled for (local) 2025-09-24, 07:30 (EDT)
Mission IMAP & Others
Launch site LC-39A, Kennedy Space Center, Florida, USA
Booster B1096-2
Landing Just Read the Instructions
Customer NASA

Webcasts

Stream Link
NASA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNRrfamTT4k
Space Affairs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xz0GoLwp3z4
Spaceflight Now https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-5oQY-y-os
NASASpaceflight https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJnuAv4XB1o
The Launch Pad https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wYpuWQ56VM
SpaceX https://x.com/SpaceX/status/1970799928386429233
The Space Devs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tg7501dQDUE

Stats

Sourced from NextSpaceflight and r/SpaceX:

☑️ 21st launch from LC-39A this year

☑️ 18 days, 22:58:05 turnaround for this pad

☑️ 136th landing on JRTI

☑️ 70 days, 5:00:35 turnaround for B1096

☑️ 515th Falcon family booster landing, 522nd Falcon recovery attempt

☑️ 121st Falcon 9 mission of 2025, 539th overall

☑️ 125th SpaceX mission of 2025, 565th overall (excluding Starship hops)

☑️ 125th SpaceX launch of 2025, 574th overall (including Starship hops)

Mission info

IMAP

Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP) will help researchers better understand the boundary of the heliosphere, a magnetic barrier surrounding our solar system. This region is where the constant flow of particles from our Sun, called the solar wind, collides with winds from other stars. This collision limits the amount of harmful cosmic radiation entering the heliosphere. IMAP will collect and map neutral particles that make it through, as well as investigate the fundamental processes of how particles are accelerated in space, from its vantage point orbiting the Sun at the Lagrange 1 point directly between the Sun and Earth.

SWFO-L1

Space Weather Follow On-Lagrange 1 (SWFO-L1) is a spacecraft mission planned to monitor signs of solar storms, which may pose harm to Earth’s telecommunication network. The spacecraft will be operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). It is planned to be placed at the Sun–Earth L1 Lagrange point, a location between the Earth and the Sun. This will allow SWFO-L1 to continuously watch the solar wind and energetic particles heading for Earth.

Carruthers Geocorona Observatory (AKA GLIDE)

The Carruthers Geocorona Observatory, also known as GLIDE (Global Lyman-alpha Imagers of the Dynamic Exosphere), is a mission by NASA led by Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Illinois to make unprecedented measurements of the far ultraviolet light emitted by hydrogen atoms in the Earth’s outermost atmospheric layer, known as the exosphere, which extends almost halfway to the moon.

This bright emission serves as a tracer of exospheric density and spatial structure, knowledge of which is needed to advance understanding of upper atmospheric physics, particularly regarding Earth’s recovery from solar-driven disturbances known as space weather.

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4 Comments

https://x.com/SpaceX/status/1970631494449111503

Falcon 9 is vertical at pad 39A ahead of tomorrow’s launch of @NASA’s IMAP mission. Liftoff is targeted for 7:30 a.m. ET, and weather is currently 90% favorable



https://bsky.app/profile/rykllan.bsky.social/post/3lzlvh6q4tc2n

#Falcon9 fairing halves of #IMAP

Two brand-new fairing halves this time!


https://bsky.app/profile/planet4589.bsky.social/post/3lzmrdjpfpc2d

The four objects from the IMAP launch have been cataloged on Space-Track as 65725 to 65728. This leaves only 21 gaps in the catalog for 2025-213 (Starshield) and 2025-214 (Geely, 14 objects expected).
Either 214 will be out of order or only 7 payloads on Starshield.

https://bsky.app/profile/planet4589.bsky.social/post/3lzmrfq6pms2d

Expected IMAP orbit is 188 x 1164400 km x 28.4 deg


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