NASA ICON spacecraft launches successfully

NASA has announced that its ICON (Ionospheric Connection Explorer) spacecraft has successfully launched and arrived in orbit. ICON is a first-of-its-kind mission that is meant to study a region of space known as the ionosphere. This region of space is important because it can change, and those changes can disrupt communications and satellite orbits.

Changes in the ionosphere can pose radiation hazards to astronauts. ICON took a different route into space than many satellites. Rather than launching atop a rocket from the ground, ICON was strapped to a Pegasus XL rocket that was under underneath a Northrop Grumman Stargazer L-1011 aircraft. The aircraft lifted off at 8:31 p.m. EDT from Cape Canaveral Air force Station in Florida.

The mission was to launch the Pegasus XL rocket at 39,000 feet at around 9:30, but that launch window was skipped due to a communication issue between the aircraft and the ground team at Cape Canaveral. The team took a second attempt, and the ICON payload was released at 9:59 p.m. EDT. The automated systems on the Pegasus rocket launched ICON without issue.

NASA reports that ICON's solar panels have successfully deployed, indicating that it has power, and all systems are operating. It will take about a month to commission the ICON satellite, and the first science data is expected to be returned in November.

ICON will explore the connections between the neutral atmosphere and the electrically charged ionosphere with four instruments. Three of them rely on an upper atmosphere phenomenon called airglow. The area is similar to the process that creates the aurora but much fainter. The area is still bright enough to allow observation of how particles pass through the upper atmosphere.