Thomas Immel of the Space Sciences Laboratory at the University of California Berkeley speaks to news media during a prelaunch mission briefing for NASA’s Ionospheric Connection Explorer (ICON), on Oct. 8, 2019, in the News Center auditorium at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Immel is ICON’s principal investigator. ICON is targeted to launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida on Oct. 9, 2019, aboard a Northrop Grumman Pegasus XL rocket carried aloft by the company’s Stargazer L-1011 aircraft. The explorer will study the frontier of space - the dynamic zone high in Earth's atmosphere where terrestrial weather from below meets space weather above.