{"id":2241907,"date":"2026-11-06T14:55:51","date_gmt":"2026-11-06T11:55:51","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2026-11-06T14:55:51","modified_gmt":"2026-11-06T11:55:51","slug":"artemis-2-blew-a-3100-mile-hole-in-the-sky-gps-receivers-noticed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2241907","title":{"rendered":"Artemis 2 Blew a 3,100-Mile Hole in the Sky. GPS Receivers Noticed"},"content":{"rendered":"

[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/gizmodo.com\/app\/uploads\/2026\/11\/Artemis-2-Launch-April-2026-1200×675.jpg”]<\/p>\n

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Humanity depends quite a bit on orbital infrastructure\u2014like those GPS satellites careening around 12,550 miles (20,200 kilometers) above sea level\u2014much more than it did back during the Apollo era. We\u2019re only now really learning what the engine burns of a multistage rocket powerful enough for a Moon mission can do to those devices busy communicating through our planet\u2019s upper atmosphere.<\/p>\n

The answer, evidently, is that these spacecraft launches can tear serious holes in our ionosphere, lowering the electron density across patches of this energetically charged layer of atmosphere and confusing ground-based GPS receivers below (albeit briefly). That\u2019s the finding from researchers at Taiwan\u2019s National Cheng Kung University, who found that the historic launch of NASA\u2019s Artemis 2 last April generated three sets of \u201ctraveling ionospheric disturbances\u201d disruptive enough to produce GPS errors several meters off target.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the first time a single space mission produced three instances of ionospheric disturbances over the same region during successive orbit maneuvers,\u201d according to the team\u2019s new study, released as a preprint via ESS Open Archive while it awaits peer review.<\/p>\n

And the creation of these temporary gaps in electron cover is not merely an academic curiosity, according to study coauthor Charles Lin, a professor of Earth science at the university where he focuses on space weather and ionosphere modeling. For someone, someday, the consequences could become a matter of life or death.<\/p>\n

\u201cA positioning error of a couple of meters is enough to cause an autonomous car to change lanes,\u201d Lin told Space.com. \u201cIt could have a strong impact not only on self-driving cars but also on drone positioning.\u201d<\/p>\n

Burn noticed<\/h2>\n

Lin\u2019s team, with an assist from NASA\u2019s Goddard Space Flight Center, compiled data from more than 3,500 ground stations across the United States that receive signals from GPS, GLONASS (Global Navigation Satellite System), and Galileo satellites. These earthbound GPS receivers have previously been used by seismologists to monitor minute geological activity in advance of earthquakes as well as the unusual ionospheric disruptions large earthquakes can themselves cause.<\/p>\n

Lin\u2019s team deployed similar methods to measure how Artemis 2\u2019s rockets altered signals between these satellites and ground stations, reconstructing the craft\u2019s burn stage perturbations via GPS communication time lags.<\/p>\n

Easily the most surprising find within this data was the impact that the rocket\u2019s less powerful second stage burn, initiated at an altitude of about 115 miles (185 km) above Earth\u2019s surface, ultimately had as it blasted higher into the ionosphere. This \u201capogee raise maneuver\u201d left a 3,107-mile (5,000-km) streak of disturbed electrons as it screamed over the continental United States, creating a tear from the Great Plains to the Atlantic Ocean at nearly the same speed as the spacecraft itself, roughly 5.1 miles per second (8.2 km\/s).<\/p>\n

\u201cThis represents the first report of such huge, elongated disturbances generated during a spacecraft launch,\u201d Lin and his coauthors stated.<\/p>\n

\"Screenshot\"
Lin\u2019s team mapped changes in total electron content (dTEC) as the second-stage of Artemis 2\u2019s rocket tore through the ionosphere above North America. Credit: Lin et al.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Burned before<\/h2>\n

Technically, this is far from the first discovery of a rocket launch\u2019s impact on Earth\u2019s ionosphere, although it is arguably the most dramatic officially documented. In 2017, Lin and his colleagues recorded a 559-mile (900-km) hole carved into the ionosphere when SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 rocket into orbit from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.<\/p>\n

And in September 2023, the coordinator for the University of Texas at Austin\u2019s Dark Skies initiative, Stephen Hummel, reported a red glow across the night sky after U.S. Space Force launched its Victus Nox satellite into orbit. Space weather observers described the glow left behind by this secretive launch as a telltale sign of ionospheric disruption.<\/p>\n

Lin\u2019s team described their Artemis 2 findings as confirmation that major future launches to the Moon and Mars are sure to become a \u201cdistinct and repeatable source of anthropogenic space weather, beyond the well-established launch-stage disturbances.\u201d These impacts, as Lin told Space.com, will likely become \u201cmuch more significant.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n

\n

Humanity depends quite a bit on orbital infrastructure\u2014like those GPS satellites careening around 12,550 miles (20,200 kilometers) above sea level\u2014much more than it did back during the Apollo era. We\u2019re only now really learning what the engine burns of a multistage rocket powerful enough for a Moon mission can do to those devices busy communicating through our planet\u2019s upper atmosphere.<\/p>\n

The answer, evidently, is that these spacecraft launches can tear serious holes in our ionosphere, lowering the electron density across patches of this energetically charged layer of atmosphere and confusing ground-based GPS receivers below (albeit briefly). That\u2019s the finding from researchers at Taiwan\u2019s National Cheng Kung University, who found that the historic launch of NASA\u2019s Artemis 2 last April generated three sets of \u201ctraveling ionospheric disturbances\u201d disruptive enough to produce GPS errors several meters off target.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the first time a single space mission produced three instances of ionospheric disturbances over the same region during successive orbit maneuvers,\u201d according to the team\u2019s new study, released as a preprint via ESS Open Archive while it awaits peer review.<\/p>\n

And the creation of these temporary gaps in electron cover is not merely an academic curiosity, according to study coauthor Charles Lin, a professor of Earth science at the university where he focuses on space weather and ionosphere modeling. For someone, someday, the consequences could become a matter of life or death.<\/p>\n

\u201cA positioning error of a couple of meters is enough to cause an autonomous car to change lanes,\u201d Lin told Space.com. \u201cIt could have a strong impact not only on self-driving cars but also on drone positioning.\u201d<\/p>\n

Burn noticed<\/h2>\n

Lin\u2019s team, with an assist from NASA\u2019s Goddard Space Flight Center, compiled data from more than 3,500 ground stations across the United States that receive signals from GPS, GLONASS (Global Navigation Satellite System), and Galileo satellites. These earthbound GPS receivers have previously been used by seismologists to monitor minute geological activity in advance of earthquakes as well as the unusual ionospheric disruptions large earthquakes can themselves cause.<\/p>\n

Lin\u2019s team deployed similar methods to measure how Artemis 2\u2019s rockets altered signals between these satellites and ground stations, reconstructing the craft\u2019s burn stage perturbations via GPS communication time lags.<\/p>\n

Easily the most surprising find within this data was the impact that the rocket\u2019s less powerful second stage burn, initiated at an altitude of about 115 miles (185 km) above Earth\u2019s surface, ultimately had as it blasted higher into the ionosphere. This \u201capogee raise maneuver\u201d left a 3,107-mile (5,000-km) streak of disturbed electrons as it screamed over the continental United States, creating a tear from the Great Plains to the Atlantic Ocean at nearly the same speed as the spacecraft itself, roughly 5.1 miles per second (8.2 km\/s).<\/p>\n

\u201cThis represents the first report of such huge, elongated disturbances generated during a spacecraft launch,\u201d Lin and his coauthors stated.<\/p>\n

\"Screenshot\"
Lin\u2019s team mapped changes in total electron content (dTEC) as the second-stage of Artemis 2\u2019s rocket tore through the ionosphere above North America. Credit: Lin et al.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Burned before<\/h2>\n

Technically, this is far from the first discovery of a rocket launch\u2019s impact on Earth\u2019s ionosphere, although it is arguably the most dramatic officially documented. In 2017, Lin and his colleagues recorded a 559-mile (900-km) hole carved into the ionosphere when SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 rocket into orbit from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.<\/p>\n

And in September 2023, the coordinator for the University of Texas at Austin\u2019s Dark Skies initiative, Stephen Hummel, reported a red glow across the night sky after U.S. Space Force launched its Victus Nox satellite into orbit. Space weather observers described the glow left behind by this secretive launch as a telltale sign of ionospheric disruption.<\/p>\n

Lin\u2019s team described their Artemis 2 findings as confirmation that major future launches to the Moon and Mars are sure to become a \u201cdistinct and repeatable source of anthropogenic space weather, beyond the well-established launch-stage disturbances.\u201d These impacts, as Lin told Space.com, will likely become \u201cmuch more significant.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

[analyse_source url=”https:\/\/gizmodo.com\/artemis-2-blew-a-3100-mile-hole-in-the-sky-gps-receivers-noticed-2000836084″]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/gizmodo.com\/app\/uploads\/2026\/11\/Artemis-2-Launch-April-2026-1200×675.jpg”] Humanity depends quite a bit on orbital infrastructure\u2014like those GPS satellites careening around 12,550 miles (20,200 kilometers) above sea level\u2014much more than it did back during the Apollo era. We\u2019re only now really learning what the engine burns of a multistage rocket powerful enough for a Moon mission can do to those […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2241907","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2241907","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2241907"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2241907\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2241907"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2241907"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2241907"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}