{"id":38315,"date":"2018-08-27T23:18:48","date_gmt":"2018-08-27T15:18:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/icon-resets-for-october-launch-from-the-east-coast\/"},"modified":"2018-08-27T23:18:48","modified_gmt":"2018-08-27T15:18:48","slug":"icon-resets-for-october-launch-from-the-east-coast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/icon-resets-for-october-launch-from-the-east-coast\/","title":{"rendered":"ICON resets for October launch from the East Coast"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Pegasus launch of NASA\u2019s Ionospheric Connection Explorer (ICON) satellite is now set to take place on October 6. The launch has also been switched from the West to East coast for the realigned attempt after an issue was noticed during its ferry flight back in June.\n<\/p>\n<p>ICON is designed to study the frontier of space \u2013 the dynamic zone high in Earth\u2019s atmosphere where terrestrial weather from below meets space weather above. The spacecraft will help determine the physics of Earth\u2019s space environment and pave the way for mitigating its effects on our technology and communications systems.<\/p>\n<p>ICON\u2019s findings will help determine the physics of the space environment and pave the way for mitigating its effects on our technology, communications systems and society.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"Meet ICON: NASA's Airglow Explorer\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/b94PaWIeG9Q?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" allowfullscreen=\"\" name=\"fitvid0\" data-gtm-yt-inspected-14=\"true\" data-gtm-yt-inspected-21=\"true\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>ICON \u2013 based on the LEOStar-2 platform \u2013 will fly in an orbit around Earth at a 27-degree inclination and at an altitude of some 360 miles. This places it in position for its four instruments to study the ionosphere around the equator. ICON will aim its instruments for a view of what\u2019s happening at the lowest boundary of space at about 55 miles up to 360 miles.<\/p>\n<p>The pre-mission flow for ICON was proceeding along a nominal path at the Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, with the ICON spacecraft encapsulated inside the Pegasus rocket\u2019s fairing and attached to Northrop Grumman\u2019s L-1011 Stargazer aircraft ahead of being ferried to the Reagan Test Site on Kwajalein Atoll.<\/p>\n<p><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-57794\" class=\"size-full wp-image-57794\" src=\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/2018-08-27-211509.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1465\" height=\"808\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/2018-08-27-211509.jpg 1465w, https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/2018-08-27-211509-350x193.jpg 350w, https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/2018-08-27-211509-630x347.jpg 630w, https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/2018-08-27-211509-768x424.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/2018-08-27-211509-1170x645.jpg 1170w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1465px) 100vw, 1465px\"><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-57794\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Pegasus ahead of the ferry flight \u2013 by Jack Beyer for NSF\/L2<\/p>\n<p>The Pegasus-XL is one of three versions of the Pegasus; alongside the original standard Pegasus, and the Pegasus-H or Hybrid \u2013 which used the standard first and second stages, but with the tail modifications to allow launch from Northup Grumman\u2019s own carrier aircraft. The standard Pegasus made six flights between 1990 and 1994, while the Pegasus-H was used for four missions between 1995 and 2000.<\/p>\n<p>Stargazer, which first flew in February 1974, was owned and operated by Air Canada \u2013 aside from a brief lease to Sri Lankan carrier Air Lanka in 1982 \u2013 as a TriStar passenger airliner until its acquisition by Orbital Sciences Corporation \u2013 as they were initially called \u2013 in May 1992.<\/p>\n<p>SpaceX<path d=\"M7.59009 18.59L9.00009 20L17.0001 12L9.00009 4L7.59009 5.41L14.1701 12\" style=\"animation: initial !important; background: initial !important; border: 0px !important; box-shadow: none !important; color: inherit !important; cursor: inherit !important; direction: inherit !important; display: inline !important; fill: currentcolor !important; filter: initial !important; float: none !important; margin: 0px !important; opacity: initial !important; outline: 0px !important; overflow: initial !important; padding: 0px !important; stroke: initial !important; transform: initial !important; vertical-align: initial !important; visibility: inherit !important;\"><\/path>NASA mission updates<path d=\"M7.59009 18.59L9.00009 20L17.0001 12L9.00009 4L7.59009 5.41L14.1701 12\" style=\"animation: initial !important; background: initial !important; border: 0px !important; box-shadow: none !important; color: inherit !important; cursor: inherit !important; direction: inherit !important; display: inline !important; fill: currentcolor !important; filter: initial !important; float: none !important; margin: 0px !important; opacity: initial !important; outline: 0px !important; overflow: initial !important; padding: 0px !important; stroke: initial !important; transform: initial !important; vertical-align: initial !important; visibility: inherit !important;\"><\/path>Aerospace &amp; Defense<path d=\"M7.59009 18.59L9.00009 20L17.0001 12L9.00009 4L7.59009 5.41L14.1701 12\" style=\"animation: initial !important; background: initial !important; border: 0px !important; box-shadow: none !important; color: inherit !important; cursor: inherit !important; direction: inherit !important; display: inline !important; fill: currentcolor !important; filter: initial !important; float: none !important; margin: 0px !important; opacity: initial !important; outline: 0px !important; overflow: initial !important; padding: 0px !important; stroke: initial !important; transform: initial !important; vertical-align: initial !important; visibility: inherit !important;\"><\/path>\n<p>     (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});<\/p>\n<p>It was during the Stargazer ferry flight with Pegasus that an issue was spotted.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-57795\" class=\"size-full wp-image-57795\" src=\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/2018-08-27-211630.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1170\" height=\"696\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/2018-08-27-211630.jpg 1170w, https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/2018-08-27-211630-350x208.jpg 350w, https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/2018-08-27-211630-588x350.jpg 588w, https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/2018-08-27-211630-768x457.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1170px) 100vw, 1170px\"><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-57795\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Engineers checking data onboard the Stargazer \u2013 via Northup Grumman.<\/p>\n<p>With the vehicle powered up periodically for health checks during the ferry, an anomalous piece of data related to rudder position was recorded.<\/p>\n<h4 class=\"widget-title penci-border-arrow\">See Also<\/h4>\n<ul>\n<li>LIVE: Pegasus\/ICON<\/li>\n<li>NGIS Forum Section<\/li>\n<li>L2 NGIS Section<\/li>\n<li>Click here to Join L2<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>That led to a deeper analysis and, in the end, a decision to not accept the risk of continuing on with the mission. The problem could not be fixed at the&nbsp;Reagan Test Site, so the pairing returned to Vandenberg for repairs.<\/p>\n<p>Based on apparent range requirements and availability, the realigned launch of the ICON mission won\u2019t see the duo return to the&nbsp;Reagan Test Site.<\/p>\n<p>Instead, the launch \u2013 which is now scheduled for NET (No Earlier Than) October 6 \u2013 will take place from the East Coast.<\/p>\n<p>As such, Stargazer and Pegasus will use the Skid Strip \u2013&nbsp;Runway 13\/31 \u2013 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (CCAFS) as their take-off point.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-57796\" class=\"size-full wp-image-57796\" src=\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/2018-08-27-211741.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1409\" height=\"803\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/2018-08-27-211741.jpg 1409w, https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/2018-08-27-211741-350x199.jpg 350w, https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/2018-08-27-211741-614x350.jpg 614w, https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/2018-08-27-211741-768x438.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/2018-08-27-211741-1170x667.jpg 1170w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1409px) 100vw, 1409px\"><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-57796\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The duo will now head to the East Coast \u2013 photo by Jack Beyer for NSF\/L2<\/p>\n<p>The Shuttle Landing Facility (SLF) at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) is not set up as a \u201chot pad\u201d designed to support the L1011 power requirements.<\/p>\n<p>Once launched, ICON will team up with NASA\u2019s Global-scale Observations of the Limb and Disk, or GOLD, mission \u2013 which was launched \u2013 in a rather interesting fashion by an Ariane 5 ECA \u2013 at the start of the year with the&nbsp;SES-14 spacecraft.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Pegasus launch of NASA\u2019s Ionospheric Connection Explorer (ICON) satellite is now set to take place on October 6. The launch has also been switched from the West to East coast for the realigned attempt after an issue was noticed during its ferry flight back in June. ICON is designed to study the frontier of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":38317,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2493,1828],"class_list":["post-38315","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-icon","tag-pegasus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38315"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38315"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38315\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38317"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38315"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38315"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}