SpaceX and NASA launched the IMAP Rideshare mission early Wednesday morning from Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center. After an apparently event-free countdown, liftoff was at 07:30 AM ET.

The flight appeared to be nominal, and Falcon 9 entered into a parking orbit around eight minutes after liftoff. The rocket and payload are now in a coast phase prior to to payload deployment, after which the three scientific satellites carried to orbit this morning will make their own way to the Lagrange 1 point, about one million miles from the Earth in the direction of the Sun.

About 7.5 minutes after liftoff, Booster B1096 touched down safely downrange aboard ASDS ‘Just Read The Instructions.’ Both barge and booster will now return to Port Canaveral, after which the booster will be offloaded and transported to SpaceX’s Hangar X facility at Kennedy Space Center, where it will be inspected, refurbished as necessary and prepared for its next mission.

Payload

Three space weather satellites were launched this morning: the NASA IMAP, Carruthers Geocorona Observatory and the NOAA) Space Weather Follow On – Lagrange 1 (SWFO-L1) instruments.

IMAP (Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe) is designed to study the boundary of the heliosphere, a bubble-like region of space dominated by the solar wind. Positioned about one million miles from Earth at the L1 Lagrange point, IMAP will capture and analyze particles that stream into the solar system from interstellar space. Its goal is to map how the solar wind interacts with the interstellar medium, shedding light on how cosmic rays are filtered and how the heliosphere protects our solar system from galactic radiation.

SWFO (Space Weather Follow-On) is a NOAA satellite mission focused on monitoring solar activity that could impact Earth’s space environment. Scheduled to launch alongside IMAP, SWFO will also be stationed at L1, where it will provide continuous data on solar wind, magnetic fields, and solar energetic particles. Its primary purpose is to support real-time space weather forecasting, helping to protect satellites, power grids, GPS, and other technologies from solar storms and other space weather events.

Carruthers Geocorona Observatory is a NASA mission named after astrophysicist George Carruthers, aimed at studying the outermost layer of Earth’s atmosphere—the geocorona. This layer of hydrogen extends thousands of miles into space, and Carruthers will observe it in ultraviolet light to understand how Earth’s atmosphere escapes into space and interacts with solar radiation. By providing detailed imaging of the geocorona, the probe will help scientists refine models of atmospheric loss, which has implications for both Earth and exoplanet habitability studies. 

Next Launch

As of 9:01 AM Wednesday September 24, 2025. Launch times are subject to change or cancellation at any time. Consult SpaceX.com for more information.