During the launch of the Formosat-5 satellite, the Falcon 9 rocket made a hole 900 kilometers in diameter in the Earth's ionosphere. A study by Taiwanese and American scientists published in Space Weather, ArsTechnica reports.
The rocket rose to an altitude of more than 300 kilometers in five minutes, moving almost vertically most of the way, which led to the formation of giant circular shock waves. Scientists say that in this way they observed the largest circular shock waves caused by rocket launch.
13 minutes after the launch of the carrier, a gap appeared in the Earth's ionosphere, which led to malfunctions of the navigation system over the western territories of the United States and the adjacent Pacific regions with a total area of 1.8 million square kilometers. The error of the GPS sensors caused by the second stage of the Falcon 9 was one meter.
This effect persisted for two to three hours, and its effect on navigation instruments is comparable to a local disturbance of the magnetic field.
Usually, shortly after launch, a space rocket moves at an altitude of 80-100 kilometers almost parallel to the planet's surface, producing V-shaped shock waves in the planet's ionosphere. ArsTechnica notes that Falcon 9 managed to reach an altitude of 300 kilometers due to the relatively small mass of Formosat-5 (475 kilograms).
The ionospheric layer of the atmosphere is located at an altitude of 60-1000 kilometers from the Earth's surface. Taiwan's Formosat-5 Earth remote sensing satellite was launched by SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket on August 24, 2017.