ICON arrives at Vandenberg
ICON arrives at Vandenberg
The ICON spacecraft was enclosed in a shipping container and trucked from Gilbert, Arizona to Vandenberg Air Force Base. This photo shows the container being offloaded from the truck. Credit: Randy Beaudoin/NASA
On May 1, our Ionospheric Connection Explorer arrived at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California for the next stage of its journey to launch, which is scheduled for June 14 US time from Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands. (Kwajalein is in a different time zone so it will be June 15 there.)
The observatory made an overnight from Gilbert, Arizona, where it was in an Orbital ATK facility. At Vandenberg, ICON will be integrated onto a Pegasus XL rocket and flown to Kwajalein on an L-1011 aircraft, which will double as the rocket's launcher.
Read more on the NASA blog
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