IMAP Mission Moves into Science Operations

The IMAP mission, carrying GLOWS on board, has reached its target position around the L1 Lagrange point.
This point, located between the Earth and the Sun, is 1.5 million km away from our planet. It is there, far from the interference of Earth’s exosphere, that the latest heliospheric observatory has begun collecting scientific data.

Phase E—the scientific portion of the mission—officially commenced on February 1, 2026, following several months of intensive testing of all instruments.

The GLOWS scientific and engineering team breathed a collective sigh of relief: everything was a success, and we can finally get down to some real science!

It is worth noting that the commissioning phase (the period of testing and fine-tuning the instrument) proved to be incredibly interesting. We observed two comets (including one from outside our Solar System) and gathered data from the strongest coronal mass ejection (CME) from the Sun in two decades.