NASA has announced that they have completely lost contact with the ICON spacecraft, which operates in the region just above Earth’s ionosphere, and have requested assistance from the U.S. Department of Defense to conduct a check.
According to an official statement released by NASA on December 8, The Ionospheric Connection Explorer (ICON), which serves as a research satellite for the Earth’s ionosphere, has lost communication, and attempts to restore the connection have also failed.
The first instance of lost contact occurred on November 25. The spacecraft is equipped with a “loss of command timer,” which allows it to automatically restart its entire system after 8 days of lost communication, thereby resuming normal operations.
ICON spacecraft – (Photo: NASA)
However, by December 5, NASA still had not received any signals from the spacecraft, despite exceeding the timeframe for the aforementioned process.
The agency had to rely on the U.S. Department of Defense’s Space Surveillance Network to locate and conduct a preliminary assessment of ICON’s status, confirming that it remains intact.
According to Space News, NASA has ruled out the possibility of damage from a collision, leaning towards the likelihood of a system malfunction. The agency is still working to identify and rectify any potential issues to re-establish communication with the spacecraft.
The ICON spacecraft, valued at $252 million, completed its primary mission that lasted for two years at the end of 2021 and is currently in its extended mission phase. NASA also has new plans for this spacecraft in 2023, as it had virtually encountered no issues during its mission prior to this loss of communication.
ICON’s mission is to study the upper and inner layers of the ionosphere, which is the atmospheric layer containing freely charged particles at the uppermost part of the atmosphere. It operates just above this layer, at altitudes ranging from 88 km to 580 km above the Earth’s surface, primarily managed by the Space Sciences Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley.
