Abstract
In this study, we analyzed signals transmitted by the U.S. Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS) geostationary (GEO) satellites using the Variometric Approach for Real-Time Ionosphere Observation (VARION) algorithm in a simulated real-time scenario, to characterize the ionospheric response to the 24 August 2017 Falcon 9 rocket launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. VARION is a real-time Global Navigation Satellites Systems (GNSS)-based algorithm that can be used to detect various ionospheric disturbances associated with natural hazards, such as tsunamis and earthquakes. A noise reduction algorithm was applied to the VARION-GEO solutions to remove the satellite-dependent noise term. Our analysis showed that the interactions of the exhaust plume with the ionospheric plasma depleted the total electron content (TEC) to a level comparable with nighttime TEC values. During this event, the geometry of the satellite-receiver link is such that GEO satellites measured the depleted plasma hole before any GPS satellites. We estimated that the ionosphere relaxed back to a pre-perturbed state after about 3 h, and the hole propagated with a mean speed of about 600 m/s over a region of 700 km in radius. We conclude that the VARION-GEO approach can provide important ionospheric TEC real-time measurements, which are not affected by the motion of the ionospheric pierce points (IPPs). Furthermore, the VARION-GEO measurements experience a steady noise level throughout the entire observation period, making this technique particularly useful to augment and enhance the capabilities of well-established GNSS-based ionosphere remote sensing techniques and future ionospheric-based early warning systems.
Highlights
Several studies have been conducted to analyze the ionospheric responses to rocket launches
We processed Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS)-GEO observations from 62 Plate Boundary Observatory (PBO) Global Navigation Satellites Systems (GNSS) stations to estimate ∆sTEC perturbations caused by the Falcon 9 rocket launch using the Variometric Approach for Real-Time Ionosphere Observation (VARION) algorithm in a simulated real-time scenario
An additional insight concerning the filtering technique is presented in the Supplementary Materials, where we clearly show that it is not possible to apply a Butterworth band-pass filter when there is a sharp discontinuity in the data without generating a non-physical total electron content (TEC) perturbation
Summary
Several studies have been conducted to analyze the ionospheric responses to rocket launches. The first detection of a localized reduction of ionization due to the interaction between the ionosphere and the exhaust plume of the Vanguard II rocket was reported by Booker [1]. The chemical processes responsible for the ionospheric hole have been described as the interactions between water (H2O) and hydrogen (H2). Localized plasma density depletions during rocket launches were detected using other measurement techniques, such as ground-based incoherent scatter radar and digisonde [3,4,5] and continuous Global Positioning System (GPS) receivers [6,7,8,9]
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