I am pleased to announce that NASA has selected two SmallSat missions – a study of Earth’s outer most atmosphere and a solar sail spaceflight test mission – to share a ride to space in 2025 with the agency’s Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP), a mission which will help researchers better understand the interstellar boundary region. Both missions were selected as Solar Terrestrial Probe (STP) Missions of Opportunity. Congratulations to Lara Waldrop (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) and the team for Global Lyman-alpha Imagers of the Dynamic Exosphere (GLIDE) and to Les Johnson (Marshall Space Flight Center) and the team for Solar Cruiser!

GLIDE will help researchers understand the upper reaches of Earth’s atmosphere – the exosphere – where it touches space. Solar Cruiser will demonstrate the use of solar photons for propulsion in space. Focusing on small satellites and tech demonstrations helps prove the capabilities of these smaller missions and pairing them with existing missions for launch provides more avenues for learning about the solar system and developing innovative technical capabilities.

We’re expanding the range and composition of a robust fleet of missions studying the Sun and space weather, and these two new selections will help advance into areas where we need to know more.

A second STP science Mission of Opportunity, the Spatial/Spectral Imaging of Heliospheric Lyman Alpha (SIHLA), also was provided funding toward a final selection decision at a later date based on budget and RideShare opportunities. SIHLA would use an innovative technique to map the entire sky to determine the shape and underlying mechanisms of the heliopause.

Please see the full press release here for more information on the selected missions, and congratulations again!

#HelioRocks  

Nicky  

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