NASA not too long ago misplaced contact with an atmosphere-studying satellite working past its design lifetime.
NASA’s Ionospheric Connection Explorer (ICON) fell out of contact on Nov. 25, and the mission group has not been in a position to hail the spacecraft within the weeks since, company officers wrote in a brief statement (opens in new tab) on Wednesday (Dec. 7).
“The group is presently nonetheless working to ascertain a connection,” NASA officers wrote. “Working with the Division of Protection’s Area Surveillance Community, the group has verified that ICON stays intact.”
In photos: NASA’s Ionospheric Connection Explorer satellite mission
ICON’s {hardware} features a “command loss timer” designed to reset the spacecraft if it does not speak to floor controllers for eight days. However the spacecraft stays silent after the reset accomplished on Monday (Dec. 5), NASA added within the weblog publish.
ICON, which launched in October 2019, is exploring sides of Earth’s ionosphere that different spacecraft haven’t regarded for earlier than. The ionosphere — a layer of Earth’s atmosphere that stretches from roughly 50 miles to 400 miles (80 to 640 kilometers) above our planet — adjustments always with solar radiation. Such variations can have an effect on communications applied sciences.
The mission handed its two-year prime mission in December 2021 and is working underneath an prolonged mission.
Troubleshooting continues, because the mission group explores the possible supply of the difficulty to “issues throughout the avionics or radio-frequency communications subsystems,” NASA officers added.
It’s unclear proper now whether or not the spacecraft will name residence once more, the weblog publish famous. “The group is presently unable to find out the well being of the spacecraft, and the shortage of a downlink sign may very well be indicative of a system failure.”
Elizabeth Howell is the co-author of “Why Am I Taller (opens in new tab)?” (ECW Press, 2022; with Canadian astronaut Dave Williams), a e-book about space drugs. Observe her on Twitter @howellspace (opens in new tab). Observe us on Twitter @Spacedotcom (opens in new tab) or Facebook (opens in new tab).
