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Mission Operations News

ICON Thermospheric Column O/N2 update - Version 6 and CMAD Draft

Limb and disk retrievals are both available.

Dr. Thomas Immel 0 43

Version 6 of the new limb products is now available on the ICON FTP server and the SPDF website. A draft version of the ICON CMAD is now available on the ICON website that includes detailed descriptions of the O/N2 products, both limb and disk.  Documentation for these products is available through http links (limb and disk) and on the ICON FTP server.

If you are unfamiliar with the Calibration, Measurement, and Algorithms Document, this provides a broad view of the calibration activites and details of the algorithms as they have been updated by the product owners and implemented in the ICON Science Data Center.

This limb product compares well to the disk product that has provided O/N2 for ICON since 2020. When compared, the two retrievals show differences that can be represented by a single offset value, as they co-vary in response to actual changes in O/N2. As with all ICON products, the scientific need is for precision and both of these products meet the mission requirements.

MIGHTI v5 wind product now processing

It's a very exciting update!

Dr. Thomas Immel 0 1080

Version 5 of the MIGHTI thermospheric winds is on its way. We are currently processing all the line of sight winds and once these are approved, will be promoted to the public FTP site and then the NASA archive. This wind product fills some long data gaps bad due to solar contamination. In version 5 the effects of this contamination has been mitigated and most of the data has been recovered. It also un-tethers the zero wind from HWM, using the on-orbit calibration processes to determine zero.

 

Tonga Volcanic Effects Data Online

Neutral winds and plasma velocities online, FUV ion density profiles now processing.

Dr. Thomas Immel 0 935

The January 2022 Tonga volcanic eruption produced some clear and remarkable effects in space that ICON saw directly. The new plasma drift data (Level 2.7 IVM v6)  and thermospheric wind and temperature data (Level 2.2, 2.3 MIGHTI v5) are on the ICON public FTP site for this event. The EUV instrument was not on, but FUV was, and we are currently completing the processing of FUV L1 data (which will be at v05 when they are published) to use in retrieval of both thermospheric composition and nighttime plasma density profiles for this event.

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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