UPCOMING MISSIONS
SPHEREx
Launch Date: 2025
Launch Site: Vandenberg Space Force Base, CA
Launch Vehicle: SpaceX Falcon 9
The Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer (SPHEREx) mission is planned to last two years and is targeted for launch in 2025. The mission will survey the sky in optical and near-infrared light which, though not visible to the human eye, serves as a powerful tool for answering cosmic questions. Astronomers will use the mission to gather data on more than 450 million+ galaxies, as well as more than 100 million stars in our own Milky Way.
IMAP
Launch Date: 2025
Launch Site: Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, FL
Launch Vehicle: SpaceX Falcon 9
NASA’s Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP) will explore and map the very boundaries of our heliosphere – the electro-magnetic bubble surrounding the Sun and planets inflated by the solar wind – and study how it interacts with the local galactic neighborhood beyond. IMAP is a simple Sun-pointed spinner in orbit about the Sun-Earth L1 point, where gravitational forces between the Earth and Sun balance. As a modern-day celestial cartographer, IMAP will use its ten instruments to explore and chart the vast range of particles in interplanetary space and from beyond to investigate two of the most important overarching issues in Heliophysics – the energization of charged particles from the Sun, and the interaction of the solar wind with the nearby part of the interstellar medium that fills our galaxy.