Incredible moment NASA air-launches Icon satellite over the Atlantic and into orbit on a mission to unlock the mysteries of the ionosphere - the upper atmosphere 'where air meets space'
NASA launched a satellite on Thursday night to explore the mysterious, dynamic region where air meets space.
The satellite - called Icon, short for Ionospheric Connection Explorer - rocketed into orbit following a two-year delay. It was dropped from a plane flying over the Atlantic off the Florida coast.
Five seconds after the satellite's release, the attached Pegasus rocket ignited, sending Icon on its way.
The ionosphere is the charged part of the upper atmosphere extending several hundred miles up.
The Pegasus rocket which carries the Icon satellite is seen before it is dropped from an airplane flying over the Atlantic Ocean off the Florida coast on Thursday
The image above the Pegasus XL rocket being released from an aircraft before it jets off into the outer reaches of the atmosphere on Thursday
The rocket was dropped from a Northrop Grumman L-1011 Stargazer aircraft (like the one seen in the above stock image)
It's in constant flux as space weather bombards it from above and Earth weather from below, sometimes disrupting radio communications.
'This protected layer, it's the top of our atmosphere. It's our frontier with space,' said NASA's heliophysics division director, Nicola Fox.
Fox said there's too much going on in this region to be caused by just the sun.
Hurricanes, tornadoes and other extreme weather conditions on Earth are also adding energy, she noted.
NASA's ICON satellite (pictured above) will collect data about space weather from the Earth's upper atmosphere.
The ICON satellite (pictured above) was originally planned for launch in 2017 but was delayed due to mechanical problems.
The more scientists know, the better spacecraft and astronauts can be protected in orbit through improved forecasting.
The refrigerator-size Icon satellite will study the airglow formed from gases in the ionosphere and also measure the charged environment right around the 360-mile-high spacecraft.
'It's a remarkable physics laboratory,' said principal scientist Thomas Immel of the University of California, Berkeley, which is overseeing the two-year mission.
He added: 'Icon goes where the action is.'
A NASA satellite launched last year, Gold, is also studying the upper atmosphere, but from much higher up.
More missions are planned in coming years to study the ionosphere, including from the International Space Station.
Icon should have soared in 2017, but problems with Northrop Grumman's air-launched Pegasus rocket interfered.
Despite the long delay, NASA said the $252million mission did not exceed its price cap. Northrop Grumman also built the satellite.
During a news conference earlier this week, NASA launch director Omar Baez apologized for the delay.
'We wanted to get things right on this rocket,' Baez said.
'We have no second chances on these type of missions.'
He called the launch 'an awesome and great one; this one's been a long time in coming.'
Baez said in the end, everything went well. 'This is about as good as it gets,' he said.
WHAT ARE SOLAR STORMS AND ARE THEY DANGEROUS?
Solar storms, or solar activity, can be divided into four main components that can have impacts on Earth:
- Solar flares: A large explosion in the sun's atmosphere. These flares are made of photons that travel out directly from the flare site. Solar flares impact Earth only when they occur on the side of the sun facing Earth.
- Coronal Mass Ejections (CME's): Large clouds of plasma and magnetic field that erupt from the sun. These clouds can erupt in any direction, and then continue on in that direction, plowing through solar wind. These clouds only cause impacts to Earth when they're aimed at Earth.
- High-speed solar wind streams: These come from coronal holes on the sun, which form anywhere on the sun and usually only when they are closer to the solar equator do the winds impact Earth.
- Solar energetic particles: High-energy charged particles thought to be released primarily by shocks formed at the front of coronal mass ejections and solar flares. When a CME cloud plows through solar wind, solar energetic particles can be produced and because they are charged, they follow the magnetic field lines between the Sun and Earth. Only charged particles that follow magnetic field lines that intersect Earth will have an impact.
While these may seem dangerous, astronauts are not in immediate danger of these phenomena because of the relatively low orbit of manned missions.
However, they do have to be concerned about cumulative exposure during space walks.
This photo shows the sun's coronal holes in an x-ray image. The outer solar atmosphere, the corona, is structured by strong magnetic fields, which when closed can cause the atmosphere to suddenly and violently release bubbles or tongues of gas and magnetic fields called coronal mass ejections
The damage caused by solar storms
Solar flares can damage satellites and have an enormous financial cost.
The charged particles can also threaten airlines by disturbing Earth's magnetic field.
Very large flares can even create currents within electricity grids and knock out energy supplies.
When Coronal Mass Ejections strike Earth they cause geomagnetic storms and enhanced aurora.
They can disrupt radio waves, GPS coordinates and overload electrical systems.
A large influx of energy could flow into high voltage power grids and permanently damage transformers.
This could shut off businesses and homes around the world.
