{"id":165977,"date":"2025-09-24T14:28:11","date_gmt":"2025-09-24T14:28:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/165977\/"},"modified":"2025-09-24T14:28:11","modified_gmt":"2025-09-24T14:28:11","slug":"spacex-launches-3-probes-to-study-space-weather-and-map-the-boundaries-of-our-solar-system","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/165977\/","title":{"rendered":"SpaceX launches 3 probes to study space weather and map the boundaries of our solar system"},"content":{"rendered":"

SpaceX just sent three space weather probes to the final frontier.<\/p>\n

A Falcon 9<\/a> rocket lifted off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center<\/a> in Florida today (Sept. 24) at 7:30 a.m. EDT (1130 GMT), carrying NASA’s IMAP mission and and two other spacecraft.<\/p>\n

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Each probe has its own objectives, but all three will work toward the same larger goal: help scientists better understand space weather<\/a> and its effects on Earth.<\/p>\n

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Image 1 of 3<\/p>\n

\"SpaceXSpaceX Falcon 9 launch of three satellites on Sept. 24, 2025.(Image credit: NASA)\"SpaceXSpaceX Falcon 9 launch of three satellites on Sept. 24, 2025.(Image credit: NASA)\"SpaceXSpaceX Falcon 9 launch of three satellites on Sept. 24, 2025.(Image credit: NASA)<\/p>\n

They’re also all headed to the same place \u2014 the sun-Earth Lagrange Point 1<\/a>, a gravitationally stable spot about 930,000 miles (1.5 million kilometers) from Earth, in the direction of our star.<\/p>\n

IMAP<\/a> (short for “Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe”) is the primary payload on today’s flight. The roughly $600 million spacecraft carries 10 different science instruments, which it will use to monitor solar activity as well as study interstellar dust and the solar wind<\/a>, the stream of charged particles flowing continuously from our sun<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The mission’s data will also help scientists map the outer boundary of the heliosphere, the vast bubble around our solar system<\/a> that’s dominated by the sun’s solar wind and magnetic field.<\/p>\n

IMAP will also provide radiation warnings for astronauts \u2014 for example, those with NASA’s Artemis program<\/a>, which aims to establish a sustained human presence on and around the moon over the next decade or so.<\/p>\n

Breaking space news, the latest updates on rocket launches, skywatching events and more!<\/p>\n

“Radiation exposure is a real threat to our astronauts traveling to the moon<\/a> and beyond,” Nicky Fox, associate administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, said during a news conference on Sunday (Sept. 21).<\/p>\n

“Humanity has only ever existed inside our protective magnetosphere, and as we travel beyond that protective shield, whether it be to the moon or to Mars<\/a>, the actionable information from missions like IMAP will keep our astronauts safe,” she added.<\/p>\n

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\"illustration\n<\/p>\n

From left to right, NASA’s Carruthers Geocorona Observatory, IMAP (Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe), and NOAA’s Space Weather Follow On-Lagrange 1 (SWFO-L1) missions will map our sun’s influence across the solar system in new ways. (Image credit: NASA)<\/p>\n

The other two spacecraft that went up today are NASA’s Carruthers Geocorona Observatory (CGO) and the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Space Weather Follow-on (SWFO-L1) spacecraft.<\/p>\n

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CGO will investigate the exosphere, the wispy outermost reaches of Earth’s atmosphere<\/a>. The small satellite “will image the faint glow of ultraviolet light from this region, called the geocorona, to better understand how space weather impacts our planet,” NASA officials said in a mission description<\/a>. “The Carruthers mission continues the legacy of the Apollo<\/a> era, expanding on measurements first taken during Apollo 16.”<\/p>\n

SWFO-L1 will track solar storms<\/a>, providing an early warning system for space weather, which can pose a threat to satellites, astronauts in orbit and some infrastructure on the ground, such as power grids.<\/p>\n

If all goes according to plan today, the Falcon 9’s upper stage will deploy IMAP into an interplanetary transfer orbit about 84 minutes after launch. SWFO-L1 and CGO will follow suit about 6.5 minutes and 13 minutes after that, respectively.<\/p>\n

The rocket’s first stage came back to Earth as planned today, landing a little less than nine minutes after liftoff on the SpaceX<\/a> droneship “Just Read the Instructions,” which was stationed in the Atlantic Ocean. It was the second flight for this particular booster, according to a SpaceX mission description<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Today’s launch was the 120th Falcon 9 flight of 2025 already. Most of these missions \u2014 more than 70% of them \u2014 have been dedicated to building out SpaceX’s Starlink<\/a> satellite-internet constellation in low Earth orbit.<\/p>\n

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\"view\n<\/p>\n

The Falcon 9’s first stage landed on the SpaceX droneship “Just Read the Instructions,” about nine minutes after liftoff. (Image credit: NASA)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SpaceX just sent three space weather probes to the final frontier. A Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":165978,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[64,63,128,285],"class_list":{"0":"post-165977","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-science","11":"tag-space"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165977","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=165977"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165977\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/165978"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=165977"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=165977"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=165977"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}