The bond order of a molecule is calculated as the difference between the number of bonding electrons and the number of antibonding electrons, divided by 2. For the neutral molecule NO, the electron configuration is:N 1s2s2p + O 1s2s2p = 1s2s2p0The molecular orbital configuration for NO is:1s, *1s, 2s, *2s, 2p, 2pThere are 10 bonding electrons 2 in 1s, 2 in 2s, 4 in 2p, and 2 in 2p and 4 antibonding electrons 2 in *1s and 2 in *2s . Bond order of NO = 10 - 4 / 2 = 3For the molecule NO+, one electron is removed, and the electron configuration becomes:1s, *1s, 2s, *2s, 2p, 2pThere are 9 bonding electrons 2 in 1s, 2 in 2s, 4 in 2p, and 1 in 2p and 4 antibonding electrons 2 in *1s and 2 in *2s .Bond order of NO+ = 9 - 4 / 2 = 2.5The bond order of NO+ 2.5 is lower than the bond order of the neutral molecule NO 3 , which means that the NO+ molecule has a weaker bond compared to the neutral NO molecule.