Gigantic Circular Shock Acoustic Waves in the Ionosphere Triggered by the Launch of FORMOSAT-5 Satellite

The launch of SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket delivered Taiwan's FORMOSAT-5 satellite to orbit from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California at 18: 51: 00 UT on 24 August 2017. To facilitate the delivery of FORMOSAT-5 to its mission orbit altitude of similar to 720 km, the Falcon 9 made a steep initial ascent. During the launch, the supersonic rocket induced gigantic circular shock acoustic waves (SAWs) in total electron content (TEC) over the western United States beginning approximately 5 min after the liftoff. The circular SAWs emanated outward with similar to 20 min duration, horizontal phase velocities of similar to 629-726 m/s, horizontal wavelengths of similar to 390-450 km, and period of similar to 10.28 +/- 1 min. This is the largest rocket-induced circular SAWs on record, extending approximately 114-128 degrees W in longitude and 26-39 degrees N in latitude (similar to 1,500 km in diameter), and was due to the unique, nearly vertical attitude of the rocket during orbit insertion. The rocket-exhaust plume subsequently created a large-scale ionospheric plasma hole (similar to 900 km in diameter) with 10-70% TEC depletions in comparison with the reference days. While the circular SAWs, with a relatively small amplitude of TEC fluctuations, likely did not introduce range errors into the Global Navigation Satellite Systems navigation and positioning system, the subsequent ionospheric plasma hole, on the other hand, could have caused spatial gradients in the ionospheric plasma potentially leading to a range error of similar to 1 m. Plain Language Summary On 24 August 2017, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket departed from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, carrying Taiwan's FORMOSAT-5 Earth observation satellite into orbit. The lightly weighted solo payload enables the rocket to fly a lofted trajectory for direct insertion at the mission altitude of 720 km. This unique nearly vertical trajectory is different from the usual satellite launches that the rockets fly over horizontal trajectory and insert satellites at 200 km altitude followed by orbit maneuvers to its mission altitudes. Consequently, the rocket launch generated a gigantic circular shock wave in the ionosphere covering a wide area four times greater than California. It is followed by ionospheric hole (plasma depletions) due to rapid chemical reactions of rocket exhaust plumes and ionospheric plasma. The ionospheric hole causing large spatial gradients could lead to similar to 1 m range errors into GPS navigation and positioning system. Understanding how the rocket launches affect our upper atmosphere and space environment is important as these anthropogenic space weather events are expected to increase at an enormous rate in the near future.