Falcon 9 • IMAP

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will launch a rideshare mission carrying two spacecraft for NASA and one for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The primary payload is NASA’s Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP), which will use its 10 science instruments to study the boundary of the Sun’s heliosphere. Along for the ride are NASA’s Carruthers Geocorona Observatory, designed to observe the ultraviolet light from the Earth’s geocorona, and NOAA’s Space Weather Follow On Lagrange 1 (SWFO-L1), which will monitor the Sun for key space weather activity. All three spacecraft will be sent toe Lagrange Point 1 (L1), which is about a 1.5 million km from Earth and is positioned in between the Earth and the Sun.