ICON Launch Delayed; New Launch Date to Come

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NASA and Northrop Grumman have decided to delay the launch of the agency’s Ionospheric Connection Explorer, or ICON, previously planned for Oct. 6,  to allow time to address a quality issue with a vendor-supplied electrical connector on the launch vehicle. Northrop Grumman does not expect an extended delay and will work with the range to determine a new launch date.

NASA’s ICON launch now targeted for Oct. 6

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NASA and Northrop Grumman are now targeting Saturday, Oct. 6, 2018, for the launch of the agency’s Ionospheric Connection Explorer, or ICON. The spacecraft will launch aboard a Northrop Grumman Pegasus XL rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. The launch window is 90 minutes starting at 4:00 a.m. EDT and ICON will be launching off the coast of Daytona at 39,000 ft. at a heading of 105.0 degrees.

Social media group spends a day at SSL for ICON "NASA Social"

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The Space Sciences Lab had the great pleasure of hosting this fantastic group of social media bloggers all day on June 13 for a "NASA Social" featuring ICON. A NASA Social event is an informal meeting of people who engage with NASA social media accounts. After applying for media credentials and being vetted by NASA, they have the opportunity to go behind-the-scenes at NASA facilities and events and speak with scientists, engineers, technicians and managers, and they tweet and post to their respective social media along the way. Our closest NASA Social visitor came from San Jose UC Berkeley and the farthest from Colombia, South America; a YouTuber came from Montreal. Their day at SSL began with talks and close interaction with the ICON team and the ICON life-size payload model. The afternoon included a special tour of mission operations and an opportunity to get close to the 11-meter satellite dish during a data pass.

Launch of NASA’s ICON Satellite Postponed

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NASA and Northrop Grumman have postponed ICON's launch. During a ferry transit, Northrop Grumman saw off-nominal data from the Pegasus rocket. While ICON remains healthy, the mission will return to Vandenberg Air Force Base in California for rocket testing and data analysis.A new launch date will be determined at a later date.

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ICON skin is based on Greytness by Adammer
Background image, courtesy of NASA, is a derivitave of photograph taken by D. Pettit from the ISS, used under Creative Commons license