After contributing to many important findings on the boundary between Earth’s atmosphere and space — an area where space weather can interfere with both satellites and communications signals — NASA’s ICON (Ionospheric Connection Explorer) mission has come to an end. The mission launched in October 2019 and completed its two-year mission objectives in December 2021, before going on to operate as an extended mission for another year.
On Nov. 25, 2022, the ICON team lost contact with the spacecraft. Communication with the spacecraft could not be established, even after performing a power cycle reset using a built-in command loss timer. Though the spacecraft remains intact, other troubleshooting techniques were unable to re-establish contact between the ICON spacecraft and mission operators.