A Year Lost Contact, NASA Officially Ends ICON's Observation MISSION

Illustration of ICON spacecraft (photo: dock. NASA)

JAKARTA After a year's disappearance, the Ionospheric Connection Explorer (ICON) mission was finally officially discontinued. This spacecraft cannot be discovered by NASA and its tenure is also over. The ICON was launched in October 2019 to observe one part of the Earth's atmosphere and successfully completed two missions in December 2021. Seeing the success of the ICON mission, NASA decided to extend its operations for up to one year. In November 2022, NASA lost contact with this spacecraft. Various ways have NASA done, including a power cycle reset, to re-communicate with ICON. However, a team from NASA is still missing access to communication. Even though NASA has lost access to this spacecraft, ICON has remained successful in providing insight. The entire data collected by ICON was used by scientists to study and observe the ionosphere. "ICON's heritage will continue to live through the knowledge of the breakthrough provided while it is still active and the large dataset from its observations will continue to produce new science," said NASA's Heliophysical Division Director Joseph Westlake.

During its three years of operation, ICON managed to surpass its primary goal of its mission. The spacecraft not only observed the ionosphere, but also studied events affecting the ionosphere, such as weather from Earth or space weather. The technology, specifically designed to capture the faintest light, captures unprecedented ionosphere data. ICON has built an overview of the density, composition, and structure of that part of the atmosphere.