Lockheed Martin has delivered the NASA Imager for Magnetopause-to-Auroral Global Exploration spacecraft (IMAGE) to Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, for its launch on 15 February. IMAGE, the first of NASA's Medium-class Explorer Mission spacecraft, was developed under a contract with Southwest Research Institute. IMAGE will be launched into a highly elliptical polar orbit to make three-dimensional images of the magnetosphere as it changes shape under the influence of the solar wind - the supersonic stream of charged particles from the sun.
Source: Flight International
