Tags: NASA, Space Weather, GPS, Space Communications
Publication: Phys.org
Publication Date: 04/17/2013

ICON’s observational geometry allows simultaneous in situ and remote sensing of the ionosphere-thermosphere system. Image credit: UC Berkeley ICON team

NASA has awarded the University of California, Berkeley, up to $200 million to build a satellite to study how the Earth’s weather affects the weather at the edge of space. The data could be crucial for improving forecasts of extreme "space weather" that can disrupt global positioning satellites (GPS) and radio communications.

Under the agreement, UC Berkeley’s Space Sciences Laboratory will design, build and operate the Ionospheric Connection Explorer (ICON) mission scheduled for launch in 2017. The university will control the satellite from its Mission Operations Center, which currently operates the THEMIS, ARTEMIS, RHESSI and NuSTAR NASA Explorer missions.

ICON will orbit at 345 miles above Earth in the ionosphere to collect data needed to establish the connection between storms that occur near Earth’s surface and space-weather storms, allowing scientists to better predict space weather. The results could help airliners, for example, which today cannot rely solely on GPS satellites to fly and land because signals from these satellites can be distorted by charged-particle storms in the ionosphere.

NASA announced the award last week, along with the Global-scale Observations of the Limb and Disk (GOLD) mission, which will map Earth’s thermosphere and ionosphere from a commercial geosynchronous satellite.

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