# IMAP

*Spacecraft*

Maps the boundary where the solar wind runs out and interstellar space begins, by catching the neutral atoms that drift back in from it - the only way to picture the edge of the heliosphere from the inside. It sits between the Earth and the Sun and reports the solar wind in real time from there as well.

| | |
| --- | --- |
| Agency | NASA |
| Launched | 2025-09-24 - still working |
| From the Sun | 149,271,542 km (-39,233 km/d) |
| From the Earth | 1,559,156 km (+2,380 km/d) |
| A signal takes | 5 s |
| Travelling at | 29.3 km/s |

Distances and speed are computed from JPL Horizons trajectories and are true of 2026-09-05, changing at the rate given beside each. The interpolation itself is good to a few kilometres; what ages these figures is the date, not the arithmetic.

## Path

A loop about L1, the same balance point DSCOVR keeps station at. The two are genuinely near neighbours - a hundred to two hundred thousand km apart at present, against the 1.5 million that separates either from the Earth - so this map draws them together because they are together.

## Elsewhere

- On the live map: https://www.orbitalmap.space/?world=solar-system&focus=imap
- The mission's own page: https://science.nasa.gov/mission/imap/
- This object as a page: https://www.orbitalmap.space/o/imap/
- Every object: https://www.orbitalmap.space/o/
- What this site is and what it reads: https://www.orbitalmap.space/llms.txt