ICON's current location. Click here to go to the ICON position plotter tool for other times.

Mission Operations News

ICON Data Browser Online

Dr. Thomas Immel 0 389

A data browser developed by Dr. Yen-Jung Wu here at SSL allows you to make plots of ICON data very quickly, and once the data are plotted provides a quick link to the file at the NASA repository. 

 

New - ICON Data Documentation Online

PDMP and CMAD collect a lot of information in one place.

Dr. Thomas Immel 0 250

The ICON Project Data Management Plan (PDMP) is available online. This 350 page document was updated for and submitted with the ICON Senior Review proposal.  It describes the content of all data files available on out own FTP site and the NASA SPDF archive.

The ICON Calibration and Measurement Algorithms Document (or CMAD) is also available online. This is a historically prescribed title for a document that is now required of all NASA missions. It is created newly for ICON for the senior review, weighs in at 180 pages, and describes the data processing algorithms used in the ICON Science Data Center.

MIGHTI v5 wind product now processing

It's a very exciting update!

Dr. Thomas Immel 0 1114

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.

 

NASA Mission Finds Tonga Volcanic Eruption Effects Reached Space

Karin Hauck 0 1200

[by Mara Johnson-Groh NASA] When the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha‘apai volcano erupted on Jan. 15, 2022, it sent atmospheric shock waves, sonic booms, and tsunami waves around the world. Now, scientists are finding the volcano’s effects also reached space.

Analyzing data from NASA’s Ionospheric Connection Explorer, or ICON, mission and ESA’s (the European Space Agency) Swarm satellites, scientists found that in the hours after the eruption, hurricane-speed winds and unusual electric currents formed in the ionosphere – Earth’s electrified upper atmospheric layer at the edge of space.

“The volcano created one of the largest disturbances in space we’ve seen in the modern era,” said Brian Harding, a physicist at University of California, Berkeley, and lead author on a new paper discussing the findings. “It is allowing us to test the poorly understood connection between the lower atmosphere and space.”

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Background image, courtesy of NASA, is a derivitave of photograph taken by D. Pettit from the ISS, used under Creative Commons license