The Ionospheric Connection Explorer (ICON) Mission

This book provides a comprehensive overview of NASA’s ICON space mission. Written before ICON’s launch, the papers contain the most complete description of the ICON flight instruments and preflight operation plans.

In addition to the technology and engineering, the volume describes ICON’s scientific mission to investigate how lower atmospheric tropospheric dynamics affect the high altitude ionosphere, and why special emphasis was placed on understanding how neutral winds affect the ionospheric dynamics.

This book helps researchers better understand ICON’s workings and why ionospheric behavior is so important to technically advanced societies, as systems based on satellite communications and GPS rely on the propagation of radio waves through the ionosphere.

Previously published in Space Science Reviews in the Topical Collection “The Ionospheric Connection Explorer (ICON) mission”

Preface.- The Ionospheric Connection Explorer Mission: Mission Goals and Design.- Michelson Interferometer for Global High-Resolution Thermospheric Imaging (MIGHTI): Instrument Design and Calibration.- Michelson Interferometer for Global High-Resolution Thermospheric Imaging (MIGHTI): Monolithic Interferometer Design and Test.- Design and Performance of the ICON EUV Spectrograph.- The Far Ultra-Violet Imager on the Icon Mission.-Ion Velocity Measurements for the Ionospheric Connections Explorer.- Time-Delay Integration Imaging with ICON’s Far-Ultraviolet Imager.- Daytime O/N2 Retrieval Algorithm for the Ionospheric Connection Explorer (ICON).- Daytime Ionosphere Retrieval Algorithm for the Ionospheric Connection Explorer (ICON).- Inferring Nighttime Ionospheric Parameters with the Far Ultraviolet Imager Onboard the Ionospheric Connection Explorer.- The MIGHTI Wind Retrieval Algorithm: Description and Verification.-Retrieval of Lower Thermospheric Temperatures from O2 A Band Emission: The MIGHTI Experiment on ICON.- On the Specification of Upward-Propagating Tides for ICON Science Investigations.- Thermosphere-Ionosphere-Electrodynamics General Circulation Model for the Ionospheric Connection Explorer: TIEGCM-ICON.- IDA4D: Ionospheric Data Assimilation for the ICON Mission.- SAMI3_ICON: Model of the Ionosphere/Plasmasphere System.

Dr. Rowland served as ICON Mission Scientist from 2013 to 2018. He currently serves as Chief of NASA Goddard’s Ionosphere, Thermosphere, Mesosphere Physics Laboratory, and as Project Scientist for the Geospace Dynamics Constellation mission. His research interests include ionospheric electrodynamics, ion-neutral coupling, magnetosphere-ionosphere coupling, and atmosphere-ionosphere coupling. He has also served as the PI of two sounding rocket missions to study the low-altitude sources of ion outflow: VISIONS from Poker Flat in 2013, and VISIONS-2 from Ny-Alesund Norway in 2018. Prior to his current role, he was a research scientist at Goddard starting in 2005. He came to Goddard as a National Research Council Fellow in 2003 after completing his PhD at the University of Minnesota.

Dr. Thomas Immel is the Princial Investigator (PI) on the NASA Ionospheric Connection mission. He earned his docotorate degree at the University of Alaska through the analysis of satellite data regarding the Earth dayglow. He joined the Space Science Laboratory in 2000 and worked on satellite based imaging data from the NASA IMAGE satellite. He has shown that satellite based imaging of oxygen emissions provides a way to monitor the dynamics of the Earth’s ionosphere and showed that the ionosphere is responsive to low altitude tropospheric conditions in addition to the previously known solar influences. As PI, he headed the Berkeley team to propose the ICON mission and oversaw ICON mission development and implementation.