The Ionospheric Connection Explorer Mission: Mission Goals and Design

Immel, T. J.; England, S.; Mende, S. B.; Heelis, R. A.; Englert, Christoph; Edelstein, Jerry; Frey, H. U.; Korpela, E. J.; Taylor, Ellen; Craig, William W.; Harris, S.; Bester, M.; Bust, G. S.; Crowley, G.; Forbes, Jeffrey M.; Gérard, Jean‐Claude; Harlander, John M.; Huba, J. D.; Hubert, Benoît; Kamalabadi, F.; Makela, J. J.; Maute, Astrid; Meier, R. R.; Raftery, C. L.; Rochus, Pierre; Siegmund, Oswald H. W.; Stephan, A. W.; Swenson, G. R.; Frey, S.; Hysell, D. L.; Saito, Akinori; Rider, Kodi; Sirk, Martin M.

doi:10.1007/s11214-017-0449-2

Cited by 203 publications

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“…This work has been created using ICON-FUV specifications available in Immel et al (2018) and Mende et al (2017) and used the freely accessible IRI 2016 (Bilitza et al, 2017), IGRF 12 (Thébault et al, 2015), and NRLMSISE00 (Picone et al, 2002) models. Gilles Wautelet, Benoît Hubert, and Jean-Claude Gérard acknowledge financial support from the Belgian Federal Science Policy Office (BELSPO) via the PRODEX Program of ESA.…”

Section: Acknowledgmentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The National Aeronautics and Space Administration Ionospheric Connection Explorer (ICON) mission will remotely sense the ion density, thermospheric wind velocity and temperature, and neutral composition at low latitudes in varying altitude ranges from the bottom of the ionosphere up to the F peak and perform in situ measurements of the ion plasma drift velocity. ICON will be launched into a circular orbit at an altitude of 575 km with a 27° inclination (Immel et al, ). Its orbit was chosen to monitor the equatorial region and its very specific ionospheric structures, such as the equatorial anomaly, the fountain effect, the equatorial spread‐ F , and the associated equatorial plasma bubbles.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The OI‐135.6 nm Nighttime Emission in ICON‐FUV Images: A New Tool for the Observation of Classical Medium‐Scale Traveling Ionospheric Disturbances?

et al. 2019

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The National Aeronautics and Space Administration Ionospheric Connection Explorer (ICON) mission will study the close relationship between the ionosphere, the atmospheric weather, and space weather using in situ and remote sensing instruments proving plasma density, temperature, ion drift velocity, and thermospheric wind velocity over the equatorial region. In particular, the far ultraviolet (FUV) instrument will image the terrestrial limb in two wavelength channels. During nighttime, only the channel characterizing the bright 135.6‐nm emission of atomic oxygen will be used. The purpose of this study is to simulate FUV nightglow measurements under quiet as well as disturbed ionospheric conditions. Classical medium‐scale traveling ionospheric disturbances (MSTIDs), which are understood as the ionospheric signature of atmospheric gravity waves, are one of the main sources of ionospheric variability. Here, we simulate their potential appearance in the FUV instrument data. The simulation model produces FUV images used as input to identify and characterize MSTIDs. MSTID propagation parameters can be retrieved under specific geometrical configurations between the FUV lines of sight and propagation direction of the MSTID, which differs depending on the limb or sublimb observing geometry. The largest MSTID signature is expected during equinoxes under solar maximum periods, for MSTID periods of less than 30 min. The weak brightness of the 135.6‐nm multiplet under solar minimum conditions is the main limitation to the MSTID detection on the nightside. Future MSTID detection algorithms would have to cope with very low signal‐to‐noise ratio, in particular during solstices and under solar minimum conditions.

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Section: Acknowledgmentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The OI‐135.6 nm Nighttime Emission in ICON‐FUV Images: A New Tool for the Observation of Classical Medium‐Scale Traveling Ionospheric Disturbances?

et al. 2019

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“…Presently, there is a significant need for synergistic laboratory experiments that can complement a host of upcoming missions aimed at developing a better understanding of the dynamics and feedback of the MIT system. The poorly understood processes controlling how the Earth responds to variable forcing from the Sun will be addressed by several new spacecraft missions, including the recently launched Global-Scale Observations of the Limb and Disk (GOLD ) mission 360 and upcoming Ionospheric Connection Explorer (ICON ) mission, 361 as well as the proposed Magnetosphere Energetics, Dynamics, and Ionospheric Coupling Investigation (MEDICI ), Dynamical Neutral Atmosphere-Ionosphere Coupling (DYNAMIC ), and Geospace Dynamics Coupling (GDC ) missions. 5 Timely experiments exploring multi-ion effects in plasmas and the impacts of ion-neutral coupling can make valuable contributions to our understanding of the MIT system.…”

Section: The Future Of Laboratory Space Physicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Laboratory space physics: Investigating the physics of space plasmas in the laboratory

Howes

2018

Physics of Plasmas

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Laboratory experiments provide a valuable complement to explore the fundamental physics of space plasmas without the limitations inherent to spacecraft measurements. Specifically, experiments overcome the restriction that spacecraft measurements are made at only one (or a few) points in space, enable greater control of the plasma conditions and applied perturbations, can be reproducible, and are orders of magnitude less expensive than launching spacecraft. Here I highlight key open questions about the physics of space plasmas and identify the aspects of these problems that can potentially be tackled in laboratory experiments. Several past successes in laboratory space physics provide concrete examples of how complementary experiments can contribute to our understanding of physical processes at play in the solar corona, solar wind, planetary magnetospheres, and outer boundary of the heliosphere. I present developments on the horizon of laboratory space physics, identifying velocity space as a key new frontier, highlighting new and enhanced experimental facilities, and showcasing anticipated developments to produce improved diagnostics and innovative analysis methods. A strategy for future laboratory space physics investigations will be outlined, with explicit connections to specific fundamental plasma phenomena of interest.

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“…Earth's ionosphere can strongly influence high‐frequency communication and global positioning systems and induce substantial currents on power lines and pipelines. With the fast development of ionospheric observational technologies, data collection has been greatly improved from early ground‐based instrumentations (e.g., ionosonde) to present various kinds of specialized satellite equipment (Anthes et al, ; Immel et al, ; Mannucci et al, ). Although the community witnessed an explosion of observational data, the global data coverage is still limited, which strongly impairs our capability of space weather monitoring and our understanding of the physical processes in the ionosphere.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…All Rights Reserved. ionosonde) to present various kinds of specialized satellite equipment (Anthes et al, 2008;Immel et al, 2018;Mannucci et al, 1998). Although the community witnessed an explosion of observational data, the global data coverage is still limited, which strongly impairs our capability of space weather monitoring and our understanding of the physical processes in the ionosphere.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Improvement of a Deep Learning Algorithm for Total Electron Content Maps: Image Completion

Zhou

Deng

et al. 2019

JGR Space Physics

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Observations with a global coverage are very important for space physics research and space weather monitoring. However, due to the technical limitations, it would be very expensive or even impossible to achieve a seamless global coverage even with advanced observational devices. It would be useful to fill missing data gaps to create a global map from the available data, but up until now this has been very challenging. Fortunately, the deep learning method, a recent breakthrough in artificial intelligence, may provide an effective way to solve this problem by making full use of data from reliable observations. In this paper, a promising deep learning algorithm, deep convolutional generative adversarial network (DCGAN), is investigated to fill the missing data of total electron content (TEC) map images. The direct use of DCGAN fails to fill missing data for the completion of TEC maps because there are always missing TEC data in some regions, such as oceans, where the features vary with time and geophysical conditions. Thus, no useful information can be utilized by DCGAN to achieve a meaningful image completion. In order to overcome this shortcoming of the original DCGAN method, a novel regularized DCGAN (R‐DCGAN) is proposed by adding an extra discriminator and some widely used reference TEC maps from the International Global Navigation Satellite Systems Service Ionosphere Working Group. The proposed R‐DCGAN method generates satisfactory ionospheric peak structures at different times and geomagnetic conditions, which demonstrate its effectiveness on filling the missing data in TEC maps. The proposed R‐DCGAN framework can be readily extended to a broad application in other fields of space sciences, particularly for addressing the missing observation data issues.

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The Ionospheric Connection Explorer Mission: Mission Goals and Design

Cited by 203 publications

References 86 publications

The OI‐135.6 nm Nighttime Emission in ICON‐FUV Images: A New Tool for the Observation of Classical Medium‐Scale Traveling Ionospheric Disturbances?

The OI‐135.6 nm Nighttime Emission in ICON‐FUV Images: A New Tool for the Observation of Classical Medium‐Scale Traveling Ionospheric Disturbances?

Laboratory space physics: Investigating the physics of space plasmas in the laboratory

Improvement of a Deep Learning Algorithm for Total Electron Content Maps: Image Completion

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