NASA is planning to find out more about the solar system and about what surrounds our solar system so they will launch a spacecraft into orbit on October 19th. The spacecraft is called the Interstellar Boundary Explorer it will be launched from the Kwajalein Atoll on a two-year mission to map the edges of our solar system.

The IBEX will also image the processes that take place at the interstellar boundary where the solar system interacts with the interstellar space, so the spacecraft will only orbit at very high altitude in order to complete its mission and to gather as much information as possible.

According to David J. McComas, IBEX principal investigator and senior executive director of the Space Science and Engineering Division at the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, “the interstellar boundary regions are critical because they shield us from the vast majority of dangerous galactic cosmic rays, which otherwise would penetrate into Earth’s orbit and make human spaceflight much more dangerous.”

Although the IBEX is not the first spacecraft to reach the interstellar boundary, we know too little about the edges of our solar system. Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 were the first to travel out of the inner solar system and they still help us to learn more as McComas said: “The Voyager spacecraft are making fascinating observations of the local conditions at two points beyond the termination shock that show totally unexpected results and challenge many of our notions about this important region.”

IBEX’s mission is to continue the “research” of two satellites that captured “a higher-energy version” of some particles in the heliosphere, where you can find the solar wind. Hopefully, the spacecraft that will be sent to orbit with the help of a Pegasus Rocket that will drop the IBEX from about 130 miles above Earth.

“What makes the IBEX mission unique is that it has an extra kick during launch. An extra solid-state motor pushes the spacecraft further out of low-Earth orbit where the Pegasus launch vehicle leaves it,” concluded Willis Jenkins, IBEX Program-Executive from NASA’s Headquarters.