ICON’s Legacy: Transforming Our Understanding of the Ionosphere

NASA’s ICON mission enhanced our understanding of the ionosphere’s impact on technology by studying its interactions with Earth and space weather, setting the stage for ongoing scientific exploration.

NASA’s ICON mission studied the outermost layer of Earth’s atmosphere called the ionosphere.
ICON provided critical insights into interplay between space weather and Earth’s weather. The mission gathered unprecedented detail of airglow, showed a relationship between the atmosphere’s ions and Earth’s magnetic field lines, and provided the first concrete observation to confirm Earth’s long-theorized ionospheric dynamo.
Nearly a year after ICON accomplished its primary mission, communication was lost in November 2022 for unclear reasons. NASA formally concluded the mission after several months of troubleshooting could not regain contact.
Mission Overview
After contributing to many important findings on the boundary between Earth’s atmosphere and space — an area where space weather can interfere with both satellites and communications signals — NASA’s ICON (Ionospheric Connection Explorer) mission has come to an end. The mission launched in October 2019 and completed its two-year mission objectives in December 2021, before going on to operate as an extended mission for another year.