The ICON Mission has now passed its Preliminary Design Review, where it is determined whether the design of the observatory and ground segment meet the mission requirements. After a season of 35 peer and design reviews that started back in April, the documentation and design for the Explorer were delivered and presented to the Standing Review Board at Orbital. Congratulations to the whole team are due, it has been an amazing effort!

Update — NASA has selected ICON to be the next Heliophysics Explorer satellite mission. The Ionospheric Connection Explorer was selected along with a Mission Of Opportunity (GOLD; Global-scale Observations of the Limb and Disk) to move forward into development (Phase B). ICON, to be lead by the University of California, Berkeley will provide NASA’s Heliophysics division with a powerful new capability to determine the conditions in space modified by weather on the planet, and to understand the way space weather events grow to envelop regions of our planet with dense ionospheric plasma.

Link to the official announcement.