Orbital ICON User Manual

LEO

Heliophysics

ICON

Studying the Earth-Sun Connection in the Ionosphere

FACTS AT A GLANCE

Mission Description

Under a contract from the University of California Berkeley/Space Sciences Laboratory (UCB/SSL)

Orbital will design, manufacture, integrate and test the Ionospheric Connection Explorer (ICON) satellite.

ICON will study the interface between the upper reaches of the Earth’s atmosphere and outer space

in response to recent scientic discovery that the ionosphere, positioned at the edge of space where

the Sun ionizes the air to create charged particles, is signicantly inuenced by storms in Earth’s lower

atmosphere. ICON will also help NASA better understand how atmospheric winds control ionospheric

variability.

The mission will improve the forecasts of extreme space weather by probing the variability of Earth’s

ionosphere with in-situ and remote-sensing instruments. Fluctuations in the ionosphere can disrupt

satellite and radio communications from low- and geostationary-orbit communications spacecraft,

creating a direct impact on the nation’s economy.

Spacecraft

The ICON mission will employ Orbital’s LEOStar™-2 platform which is a exible, high-performance

spacecraft for space and Earth science, remote sensing and other applications. LEOStar-2 series

spacecraft have supported multiple missions for commercial and government customers over the past

15 years. ICON will be the ninth LEOStar-2-based spacecraft built by Orbital.

Mission:

Probing the variability of Earth’s

ionosphere with in-situ and remote-

sensing instruments

Customer:

University of California at Berkeley

CAD drawing of ICON instruments

ICON

Specications

Spacecraft

Launch Mass: 272 kg (600 lb.)

Redundancy: Single String

Solar Arrays: 780 W, Articulated Arrays

Stabilization: 3 Axis, Zero Momentum

Orbit: 575 km circular @ 27

°

Inclination

Mission Life: Two Years

Launch

Launch Vehicle: TBD

Launch Site: Cape Canaveral Air Force Station

Date: 2017

Instruments

• Michelson Interferometer for Global High-Resolution Thermospheric

Imaging (MIGHTI) will detect the aurora-like glow of air molecules in the

thermosphere and measure their temperature and speed via doppler

imaging

• Extreme Ultraviolet imager (EUV) will provide images of the upper

atmosphere in extreme ultraviolet spectrum

• Far Ultraviolet imager (FUV) will provide images of the upper

atmosphere in the far ultraviolet spectrum

• Ion Velocity Meter (IVM) will measure in-situ the charged particles and

owing plasma

Mission Partners

University of California at Berkeley/Space Sciences
Laboratory

Principal investigator: Dr. Thomas Immel; mission management,

science and mission operations, EUV & FUV instruments; payload

integration and test

Orbital Sciences Corporation

Spacecraft development, observatory integration and test, launch

operations

Naval Research Laboratory

MIGHTI instrument

University of Texas at Dallas

IVM instrument

Orbital Sciences Corporation

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