IMAP's Instruments Are Coming Online

By Andy Tomaswick - December 20, 2025 12:32 PM UTC | Missions
Image of the CoDICE instrument before it was loaded into the IMAP Telescope. Credit - SwRI
Image of the CoDICE instrument before it was loaded into the IMAP Telescope. Credit - SwRI

During the deployment of new space telescopes that are several critical steps each has to go through. Launch is probably the one most commonly thought of, another is “first light” of all of the instruments on the telescope. Ultimately, they’re responsible for the data the telescope is intended to collect - if they don’t work properly then the mission itself it a failure. Luckily, the Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP) recently collected first light on its 10 primary instruments, and everything seems to be in working order, according to a press release from the Southwest Research Institute who was responsible for ensuring the delivery of all 10 instruments went off without a hitch.

Instruments not working even with a flawless launch is not unheard of. Hubble famously had to undergo a series of corrective operations for its main lens, which involved people physically making spacewalks up to the telescope to repair and fix things. The result was some of the most famous astronomy images ever taken. However, IMAP won’t have that luxury - it's destined for the L1 Lagrange point directly between the Earth and the Sun - way out of the range of currently operational human-carrying spacecraft.

Luckily, it doesn’t seem like that will be required, and IMAP can get started on its primary mission once it researches its destination and run through some start-up procedures. But the operators, based at Johns Hopkins University, figured it would be simple enough to try out the telescope’s instrumentation while on the way there.

NASA video showcasing the IMAP mission. Credit - NASA Goddard YouTube Channel

That instrumentation is designed to study how out “heliosphere” - the area around our star in which the Sun is the primary influence - interacts with the wider interstellar neighborhood. One particular instrument that stands out for this mission is the Compact Dual Ion Composition Experiment (CoDICE).

It’s a 22-lb instrument about the size of a 5 gallon bucket of pain that is designed to measure interstellar ions, including relatively rare ones like oxygen and iron that are being expelled from the Sun past the heliosphere on the solar wind. In particular, CoDICE will measure the mass ad charge of ions passing by it. Visually, it looks stunning, with a shiny “gold” surface that is designed to face the Sun to reflect its heat and a matte black one that is designed to absorb as much heat as possible from the cold of the cosmic void.

But it’s only one of ten instruments set to start operating on IMAP, and only one of four charged particle detectors, which also include SWAPI, built by Princeton, that is intended to also measure solar wind ions as well as “pickup” ions that come into the heliosphere from interstellar space. The Solar Wind Electron instrument is designed to measure the 3D distribution of solar wind electrons, to provide context for measurements from other instruments. And the High-energy Ion Telescope (HIT) was developed by NASA to monitor “high-energy” particles that are accelerated by solar flares and other solar shocks.

Video from Johns Hopkins showcaing some of the telescope's instrumentation. Credit - Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory

The other sensors can be grouped into two additional categories - Energetic Neutral Atom (ENA) detectors and Coordinated Measurement. There are 3 separate ENA sensors, each of which measure different energy levels of charge-neutral atoms. The coordinator measurement sensors both provide backup data, such as magnetic field strength, and novel sensing, such as an interstellar dust collector.

While IMAP is still a few weeks out from its destination, and full science operations are expected to begin until February, it sounds like everything is going well so far. As more and more of its systems come online we’ll start to get a more complete image of our place in the galaxy using IMAP over at least the next two years of the telescope’s prime mission - with even more to come if we’re lucky.

Learn More:

SwRI - Novel SwRI-developed IMAP instrument delivers first-light data

UT - Can IMAP Solve the Mystery of the Bubble in Space!

UT - NASA's Interstellar Mapping Probe Prepares for a 2025 Launch

UT - The heliosphere looks a lot weirder than we originally thought

Andy Tomaswick

Andy Tomaswick

Andy has been interested in space exploration ever since reading Pale Blue Dot in middle school. An engineer by training, he likes to focus on the practical challenges of space exploration, whether that's getting rid of perchlorates on Mars or making ultra-smooth mirrors to capture ever clearer data. When not writing or engineering things he can be found entertaining his wife, four children, six cats, and two dogs, or running in circles to stay in shape.