Public Resources

Technicians perform tests the Solar Wind and Pickup Ions (SWAPI) instrument of NASA’s IMAP (Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe) observatory inside the high bay at the Astrotech Space Operations Facility near the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Tuesday, June 17, 2025. As IMAP spins in space, solar wind particles are swept into SWAPI through a special opening called “sunglasses,” an opening covered by a screen with very tiny precise holes that cut down the brightness of the very intense solar wind. SWAPI collects and counts particles from the solar wind flowing from the Sun and particles called pick-up ions that have entered the heliosphere from outside the solar system and traveled inwards where IMAP orbits near Earth.