Study Findings: Rare Reoccurring Ionosphere Disturbances Observed During the Artemis-II Lunar Flyby Voyage

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Image (Credit): NASA’s Space Launch System rocket launching on April 1, 2026 with the Orion spacecraft and four crew members. (NASA/Bill Ingalls)

Geophysical Research Letters abstract of pre-print study findings:

The total electron content observations during the Artemis-II Lunar mission revealed rare reoccurring ionospheric perturbations at three different occasions. The launch at 2235 UT on 1 April 2026 from Kennedy Space Center, USA, induced shock-acoustic and gravity wave modulations. Subsequent Apogee Raise Burn performed at 0023 UT on 2 April triggered shock waves and unprecedented large-scale disturbances that elongated ~50° longitude across North America. The third orbital maneuver conducted as part of trans-Lunar injection burn at 2349 UT on 2 April, about 25 hours after liftoff, again yielded similar, but weaker large-scale ionospheric perturbations. This is the first time a single space mission produced three instances of ionospheric disturbances over the same region during successive orbit maneuvers. The estimated spacecraft trajectory shows that the two orbit maneuvers were initiated at the perigee altitude of 185 km over the longitudes of 120°W-105°W, directly depositing exhaust burn energy within the ionosphere.

Citation: Choi, J., Lin, C., Chou, M. et al. Rare reoccurring ionosphere disturbances observed during the Artemis-II Lunar flyby voyage. Geophys. Res. Lett..

DOI: https://essopenarchive.org/doi/full/10.22541/essoar.15006449/v1

Study-related stories:

Space.com – “NASA’s Artemis II Moon Launch Tore a Hole in Earth’s Upper Atmosphere So Huge It Disrupted GPS Signals”

USA Today – “Artemis II Moon Launch Was So Powerful It Punched a Hole in Atmosphere”

Sacramento Bee – “Lunar Rocket Launch Tore ‘Hole’ in Earth’s Atmosphere, Disrupted GPS, Study Finds”

Space Quote: Complex Artemis III Plans for 2027

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Credit: NASA.

“Every piece of this mission in Earth orbit is designed to reduce risk before we put astronauts back on the Moon…We’re launching three spacecraft on three different rockets and testing how they operate together — something NASA has never attempted. Every lesson we learn here gets us closer to landing on the Moon in 2028.”

–Statement by Jeremy Parsons, NASA’s Artemis program manager, regarding a planned 14-day test in 2027 of Blue Origin’s Blue Moon, SpaceX’s Starship, and NASA’s Orion capsule using three different rockets (Blue Origin’s New Glenn, SpaceX’s Starship, and NASA’s Space Launch System). See the NASA image above to understand the complexity of what is planned. You can also find more information about the mission here.

Video: Pale Blue Dot Update

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): View of the Moon-lit Earth taken by astronauts on the Artemis II mission. (NASA)

If you are looking for something soothing and hopeful at the end of the day, I recommend this video from Aeon magazine. It is all about the image you see above from the Artemis II mission, and it provides some helpful context to better understand our position in this universe of ours.

I think Carl Sagan would like the narrative as well.

Artemis II: And Then There Was One

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): The Artemis II crew with (from left) NASA Astronauts Christina Koch, Victor Glover, Reid Wiseman, Canadian Space Agency Astronaut Jeremy Hansen. (NASA)

Four astronauts circled the Moon earlier this year, more than 50 years after the final lunar landing, but only one of them will remain an astronaut going forward. Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen (age 50), who served as mission specialist on the Moon mission, retired from his position with the Canadian Space Agency in July. And now we learn that NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman (age 50), who served as commander on the mission, and Victor Glover (age 50), who served as pilot, have also announced their plans to depart as well.

Either there is something in the water, or age 50 is a good time to step away from an astronaut gig.

Hansen said he was pursuing new professional opportunities, Glover said he has a new job at California Polytechnic State University, and Wiseman provided no additional information. However, both Glover and Wiseman will transition to emeritus status. It is not clear if that is just a thank you role that gives them a discount at the agency cafe, or will entail some real duties.

NASA defines the emeritus role this way:

In an emeritus role, individuals with a high degree of technical and professional knowledge can continue to support the agency by donating their time to train and mentor the current workforce. This allows the agency to maintain access to top talent in a specialized consultant role, while simultaneously providing the individual with the flexibility to pursue other opportunities.

That leaves one Artemis II astronaut still standing – Christina Koch (age 47).

Back in August, all four were awarded the Congressional Space Medal of Honor at Houston’s Johnson Space Center. It is just unfortunate the they are leaving at a time that a lunar program is starting to grow.

All we can do is wish them well in their post-astronaut careers. They have plenty of stories that will hopefully encourage a new generation of astronauts.

Note: I want to make it clear that NASA astronauts do not need to retire at a certain age. For example, NASA astronaut Don Pettit was heading back to Earth from his latest space mission on his 70th birthday.

Space Stories: A New Lunar Spacesuit, a Map of the Cosmos, and Modeling Planetary Systems

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Credit: Image by PixelLabs from Pixabay.

Here are some recent space-related stories of interest.

—Ars Technica: “Wary of Artemis IV Timeline, NASA is Changing Lunar Spacesuit Design”

NASA has decided to use a simpler spacesuit for its initial missions to the lunar surface, Ars has learned. The agency announced the decision during an internal meeting this week as it seeks to accelerate its program to land humans at the south pole of the Moon as early as 2028. At the direction of Artemis Program Manager Jeremy Parsons, NASA will work with Axiom Space to develop a “Sortie Suit” variant of the planned spacesuit for the lunar surface. Sources said the Sortie Suit will be used for the initial landing missions flown on landers developed both by SpaceX and Blue Origin. Among the goals of the initiative are to lower the mass of the spacesuit, reduce its complexity, and simplify interfaces between the spacesuits and lunar landers.

—Wired: “Astronomers Have Completed the Largest Map of Space. Yes, You Can Play With It.“

The driving force behind our universe’s accelerated expansion remains one of the greatest mysteries in astronomy. While this force, which scientists refer to as dark energy, pervades our universe, we know almost nothing about it. Located on a remote mountain in Arizona’s Sonoran Desert, the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) has spent the past five years mapping the cosmos with the goal of unraveling this mystery. The result is the largest three-dimensional map of the universe ever created. And now—with the release of the latest version of the DESI Legacy Imaging Surveys, a free online tool for exploring the vast imaging data—you too can poke around the universe.

—Phys.org: “New Solar System Models Show Earth is No Fluke“

Over the past three decades, computer models of planetary system formation have gone from fairly crude representations to sophisticated simulations using thousands of different starting points. A paper presented at the Origins 2026 conference in Paris details innovative simulations of how our solar system might have formed without making assumptions about the planetary architecture with which we are so familiar. In his paper, Nader Haghighipour, a planetary scientist at the University of Hawaii in Manoa, argued that his models, unlike previous models, incorporate many completely random starting points and, in turn, let physics drive the models’ ultimate evolution. As a result, these new models are much more complete and allow physics to dictate their outcomes.

Note: Here is the podcast version of this post.