Pegasus ICON Starboard Fairing Mate

Technicians prepare to install the starboard side of the Northrop Grumman Pegasus XL rocket’s payload fairing around NASA's Ionospheric Connection Explorer (ICON) inside Building 1555 at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California on Sept. 17, 2019. ICON launched on the Pegasus XL rocket, attached beneath the company's L-1011 Stargazer aircraft, on Oct. 10, 2019, after takeoff from the Skid Strip at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. ICON will study the frontier of space - the dynamic zone high in Earth's atmosphere where terrestrial weather from below meets space weather above. The explorer will help determine the physics of Earth's space environment and pave the way for mitigating its effects on our technology, communications systems and society.