Abstract
A Solar Radio Burst (SRB) is one of the most severe natural hazards affecting the performance of the global navigation satellite systems (GNSS). Considering the influence of different threat factors, the GNSS developers upgrade the systems to amend the accuracy and noise-proof features of the systems. In particular, GPS gradually replaces “old” satellites (GPS IIA, GPS IIR-A, GPS IIR-B) with new-generation equipment (GPS IIR-M, GPS IIF, GPS III) featured by an increase in the emitted signal power at L2 frequency and by new civilian codes. In this work, based on examples of the extreme SRB of September 24, 2011, and the severe SRB of September 6, 2017, we study how such modernization can improve the GPS system performance during solar flares accompanied by intense SRB. We recorded SRB-related drops in signal strength (S), which were 7.5/0 dB-Hz for the S1C, 10/7 dB-Hz for the S2X, 17/8 dB-Hz for the S2W and 9/7.5 for the S5/S5X in 2011/2017 correspondingly. The drop in the S2W signal strength for the modernized blocks was comparable in amplitude to those of the “old” blocks. However, the modernized IIR-M/IIF blocks were featured by about 5 dB-Hz higher signal strength. This resulted in a double and triple decrease in loss-of-lock density for the IIR-M/IIF satellites in 2011 and 2017, respectively, as compared to IIA/IIR-A during SRBs. Therefore, the increase in the emitted signal power and new civilian codes potentially enhance the stability of the GPS operation.
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Data availability
The solar radio spectrographs data are publicly available from the National Geophysical Data Center (NGDC, http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/ngdc.html); station ZIM2 data are available from the EUREF Permanent Network Services (ftp://ftp.epncb.oma.be/). We used GNSS data obtained and publicly stored by the Scripps Orbit and Permanent Array Center, UCSD (ftp://garner.ucsd.edu/; http://lox.ucsd.edu/pub/), Bundesamt für Kartographie und Geodäsie Data Center (ftp://igs.bkg.bund.de/), Wuhan University (ftp://igs.gnsswhu.cn/), Crustal Dynamics Data Information System (ftp://cddis.gsfc.nasa.gov/), Korea Astronomy and Space Institute (ftp://nfs.kasi.re.kr/), NOAA's National Geodetic Survey (ftp://www.ngs.noaa.gov/cors), UNAVCO (ftp://data-out.unavco.org/), Système d'Observation du Niveau des Eaux Littorales (SONEL, ftp://ftp.sonel.org/), the EUREF Permanent Network Services (ftp://ftp.epncb.oma.be/), Geoscience Australia (ftp://ftp.ga.gov.au/), the New Zealand GeoNet project (ftp://ftp.geonet.org.nz/), the State GPS network of the Republic of Bulgaria (ftp://195.96.249.3/), Institut Geographique National (ftp://igs.ensg.ign.fr/), Instituto Geográfico Nacional (ftp.geodesia.ign.es), Instituto Tecnológico Agrario de Castilla y León (ftp.itacyl.es), Geodetic Data Archiving Facility (ftp://geodaf.mt.asi.it/), and Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística (ftp://geoftp.ibge.gov.br/). Data of Canadian High Arctic Ionospheric Network (http://chain.physics.unb.ca/) and data of SibNet network as a part of Center for Common Use “Angara” (http://ckp-angara.iszf.irk.ru/) are available upon request.
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Acknowledgements
We thank Dr. I. Zhivetiev for the “tec-suite” software (http://www.gnss-lab.org/) used for RINEX files processing. We acknowledge the organizations providing GNSS data. This work was performed with the support of the Russian Federation President Grant No. MK-3265.2019.5, RFBR and the Government of the Irkutsk Region under project No. 20-45-383010 and the budgetary funding of Basic Research program II.16.
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Yasyukevich, Y.V., Yasyukevich, A.S. & Astafyeva, E.I. How modernized and strengthened GPS signals enhance the system performance during solar radio bursts. GPS Solut 25, 46 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10291-021-01091-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10291-021-01091-5