Artemis II Ionosphere Disturbance Explained: 3,100-Mile 'Hole' in the Sky, GPS Risk and What It Means for India

Image: NASA, via Wikimedia Commons (public domain) — Artemis II lifts off from Kennedy Space Center on the Space Launch System in April 2026. Official launch photo.

TL;DR — Artemis II ionosphere disturbance explained: NASA's Artemis II launch in April 2026 did more than send four astronauts around the Moon — a new study says the giant SLS rocket and two later engine burns punched three holes in the ionosphere, the largest stretching 3,100 miles across North America. GPS errors of several metres were possible, though no outage was actually measured.

📌 Key Highlights

• Three disturbances: the SLS launch itself plus two later upper-stage engine burns created three separate "ionospheric holes" — patches of the upper atmosphere where electrically charged particles thinned out.
• Enormous scale: the largest disturbance stretched about 50 degrees of longitude — roughly 3,100 miles (more than 5,000 km) across North America, about the distance from New York to California.
• GPS was at risk in theory: navigation signals pass through the ionosphere, so the disturbance could have caused GPS location errors of several metres.
• No outage found: researchers found no evidence of a widespread GPS outage, car crashes or drones going off course — and the study did not directly measure GPS disruption.
• The study: researchers at National Cheng Kung University in Taiwan; the findings are set to appear in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. Artemis II flew in April 2026 with four astronauts on the first crewed trip around the Moon in more than 50 years.

What happened?

NASA's Artemis II mission launched from Kennedy Space Center in Florida in April 2026, sending four astronauts — commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen — on a ten-day trip around the Moon and back. It was the first time humans had travelled into lunar space since 1972, and the Space Launch System (SLS) that carried them is the most powerful rocket NASA has ever built.

Months later, researchers analysing the flight found that the launch had left a mark much closer to home. The SLS liftoff and two engine burns by the upper stage after the spacecraft had left Earth created three separate disturbances in the ionosphere, the electrically charged layer of the upper atmosphere. The biggest surprise was where the largest change happened: not at liftoff, but during the engine burns in space, after the rocket had already left the ground.

Artemis II ionosphere disturbance explained: what is an ionospheric hole?

The ionosphere sits roughly 80 to 600 km above Earth. It is full of electrically charged particles, and every GPS signal has to travel through it on its way from a satellite to your phone, car or aircraft. When the density of those particles changes, the signals slow down or speed up slightly — and that changes the position your device calculates.

A rocket launch dumps huge amounts of exhaust into the upper atmosphere, and engine burns in orbit do the same. That exhaust can strip away or displace the charged particles, leaving a patch where they are much thinner than usual. Scientists call these patches "ionospheric holes" — not a visible hole in the sky, and not a tear in the atmosphere, but a region where the charged-particle count drops sharply.

What the study found	Detail
Disturbances detected	Three separate ones over North America
Cause	SLS launch plus two later upper-stage engine burns
Largest disturbance	About 50 degrees of longitude — roughly 3,100 miles (5,000+ km)
Possible GPS effect	Location errors of several metres
GPS outage measured?	No — no evidence of a widespread outage
Researchers	National Cheng Kung University, Taiwan

Image: NASA, via Wikimedia Commons (public domain) — the Artemis II crew: Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen, the first astronauts to fly around the Moon in more than 50 years.

Could it have affected GPS?

In principle, yes — by a little. Because GPS signals pass through the ionosphere, a big patch of thinned-out charged particles can shift the timing of those signals, and timing is how your device works out where you are. The researchers say the Artemis II disturbances could have caused GPS location errors of several metres across a huge area of North America.

Two honest caveats matter here. First, the study did not directly measure any GPS or GNSS disruption — it measured the atmosphere, not the navigation signals. Second, researchers found no evidence that Artemis II caused a widespread GPS outage, car crashes or drones going off course. So this is a warning about what big rockets can do to the sky above a launch, not a report that anyone's navigation actually failed in April.

That distinction is exactly why the finding matters. A few metres of error is nothing for finding a restaurant, but it is a real problem for drones, self-driving cars, precision farming and aircraft landing systems — all of which depend on knowing their exact position. As rockets get bigger and launches get more frequent, scientists want to know how often this happens and how large the effect can get.

What it means for India readers

The disturbance was over North America, not India — nothing in this study says Indian navigation was affected by the April launch. But the physics is the same everywhere on Earth, and India has more skin in this game than most countries. Both GPS and India's own NavIC system send their signals through the same ionosphere, so a big disturbance above India would affect Indian users in exactly the same way.

That is timely: ISRO's new NavIC satellite NVS-03 reached its intended orbit on 5 November, restoring the four-satellite minimum NavIC needs — read our ISRO NVS-03 launch explainer — and rocket launches from ISRO's new Kulasekarapattinam spaceport in Tamil Nadu are due to begin next year. India is also pushing to make its space activity cleaner, as our India debris-free space 2030 explainer covers. More launches worldwide means more chances for the same effect to show up, and researchers say they plan to watch for it during future Artemis missions.

The same week also brought a reminder that what goes up comes back down through the same atmosphere: NASA's Swift telescope fell back to Earth over Indonesia on 4 November after 22 years in orbit — see our NASA Swift Observatory reentry explainer.

Should you care?

✅ Yes — mildly, and for the future more than for April. Nobody's GPS broke during Artemis II, and no outage was measured. But this is the first measurement of its kind for the biggest rocket NASA flies, and launch rates are only rising — in the US, in India and everywhere else. If every giant launch can quietly dent the sky for thousands of miles, navigation systems need to know about it before the rockets that depend on them do.

FAQs

Did Artemis II create a hole in the atmosphere?
Not a visible hole or a break in the sky. The launch and two later engine burns thinned out electrically charged particles in the ionosphere, creating three patches — "ionospheric holes" — where particle counts dropped. The largest stretched about 3,100 miles across North America.

Could Artemis II have affected GPS?
Possibly, by several metres. GPS signals travel through the ionosphere, so changes there can shift the position a device calculates. But the study did not directly measure GPS disruption, and researchers found no evidence of a widespread outage, crashes or drones going off course.

What is the ionosphere?
It is a layer of Earth's upper atmosphere, roughly 80 to 600 km up, filled with electrically charged particles. It affects radio and satellite signals passing through it, including GPS, and it is also where auroras form.

Will future rocket launches affect GPS?
That is what researchers want to find out. They plan to watch for similar effects during future Artemis missions, and as launches become more frequent, understanding how big rockets disturb the upper atmosphere matters for drones, self-driving cars and other systems that need precise positioning.

Takeaway: Artemis II made history around the Moon — and quietly dented the sky on the way up. The 3,100-mile disturbance is a first measurement, not a disaster, but it is one more thing every country launching big rockets, India included, now has to watch.

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Sources

• Montgomery Advertiser / USA Today — Artemis II rocket created huge atmospheric disturbance, study says — montgomeryadvertiser.com
• Mezha, reporting on TechRadar — Artemis II launch triggered three ionosphere disturbances over North America — mezha.net
• Newsbytes — NASA Artemis II created ionospheric holes and US GPS glitches — newsbytesapp.com
• BBC Newsround — Artemis II mission and crew details, April 2026