NASA lunar rocket launch may have caused GPS disruptions, study finds

A recent study by researchers at Taiwan’s National Cheng Kung University found that NASA’s Artemis II lunar rocket launch produced three surges of perturbations in Earth’s ionosphere, the upper atmosphere layer important for communication and navigation, according to The Sacramento Bee.

The Artemis II mission, launched April 1 from Florida, was NASA’s first lunar mission with astronauts since the Apollo program ended in 1972, The Sacramento Bee reported. The study, published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, suggested the rocket may have punched a hole in the ionosphere, causing changes equivalent to GPS positioning errors of several meters.

Such positioning errors could potentially impact technologies relying on precise GPS signals, including autonomous vehicles and drones, researcher Charles Lin told Space magazine, as cited by The Sacramento Bee. However, no actual GPS failures, navigation disruptions, or accidents were reported following the launch, according to Newsweek.

The study highlights potential risks as powerful rocket launches become more frequent, though the real-world effects remain unconfirmed, The Sacramento Bee noted. The ionosphere extends from about 30 to 600 miles above Earth and plays a key role in reflecting and modifying radio waves used for navigation.