GLOWS, the first research instrument for a NASA space mission designed and built entirely in Poland, has successfully passed tests and has been integrated with the Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP), the Space Research Centre of the Polish Academy of Sciences reports. The mission is scheduled to launch in the second half of this year.
GLObal solar Wind Structure (GLOWS) is a photometer whose main objective is to investigate the global heliolatitude structure of the solar wind and its evolution during the solar cycle. It was developed by scientists and engineers from the Space Research Centre of the Polish Academy of Sciences (CBK PAN). It is one of 10 instruments that NASA's Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP) will take into space.
In August 2024, GLOWS was sent to the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL). This research centre in Maryland (USA) serves as a technical resource for the Department of Defense, NASA and other government agencies, we read in the Space Research Centre PAS release sent to PAP.
"We conducted additional tests almost until the last day before the shipment. It was in fact an additional, month-long campaign of thermal, vibration, electromagnetic and functional tests of GLOWS. The most important tests were conducted in a clean room in the Space Research Centre PAS thermal-vacuum chamber', says Maciej Bzowski, PhD, a professor at the Space Research Centre PAS and head of the GLOWS Team.
After its arrival in the US, the instrument was additionally tested in the APL clean room and then integrated with the IMAP and tested again. On the Polish side, the integration and tests were attended by GLOWS chief engineer Roman Wawrzaszek, PhD, and GLOWS chief electronics engineer Kamil Jasiński.
The launch of the IMAP mission is currently scheduled for the second half of September 2025. The initiation of the satellite is planned just a few days after the launch. Then, the technical program launch phase will take place, followed by the launch phase of the mission's scientific instruments, one by one.
'After launching all the instruments in the following weeks, we will have to learn how to optimally use the entire observatory, which will take several months. The scientific phase of the mission, i.e. the transition to observations for scientific analysis, will probably begin at the turn of 2026 and continue for at least two years', Bzowski explains.
He adds that after this period, if all the instruments are still operational, the mission may be extended. 'We are counting on it, because the optimal use of GLOWS research potential requires conducting observations throughout the entire 11-year cycle of solar activity', he admits.
GLOWS observations will enable a more detailed study of the distribution of interstellar neutral hydrogen (ISN H) and the radiation pressure that affects hydrogen atoms in the heliosphere.
GLOWS will observe the hydrogen glow, which is created when neutral hydrogen atoms are excited to glow by intense solar radiation in the Lyman-α line (wavelength 121.56 nm). The hydrogen atoms absorb Lyman-α photons and then re-emit them in a random direction. These re-emitted photons create the hydrogen glow that GLOWS will observe. The intensity of the glow observed near Earth varies between 300 and 1000 Rayleighs, depending on the observer’s position and the phase of the solar cycle.
The scientific part of the IMAP mission is supervised by by Princeton University professor David J. McComas, who leads a team of 25 partner institutions. The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, manages mission development and builds the IMAP spacecraft. The mission operations and data centre are located at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) at the University of Colorado Boulder. In addition to the above-mentioned institutions, the mission also includes the University of New Hampshire, the Southwest Research Institute and the Los Alamos National Laboratory (USA,) and Imperial College (UK).
The implementation of the GLOWS experiment as part of the NASA Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP) space mission is financed from the state budget under an agreement between the Ministry of Science and NASA.
According to the press release, the instrument's casing is engraved with the name of Paweł Orepuk, the winner of last year's Space Research Centre PAS auction for the Great Orchestra of Christmas Charity, and the characteristic Orchestra heart. (PAP)
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