Overview of DLR-SO Node

Location (town, country): Neustrelitz, Germany

Web site: https://impc.dlr.de/

Description of the infrastructure:

The Ionosphere Monitoring and Prediction Center (IMPC) of DLR provides a near real-time information and data service on the current state of the ionosphere, related forecasts and warnings. The IMPC research addresses amongst others ionospheric perturbation detection, modelling and forecasting, mapping errors, higher order errors in precise point positioning, empirical and physical modelling and 3D electron density reconstructions.

IMPC products and service contribute to the mitigation of ionospheric impacts on technology with near real-time space weather monitoring, prediction of disturbed conditions, Information messages to users, data delivery services as well as education and public outreach. The IMPC with its special combination of scientific know-how and data management provides a pre-operational ionospheric weather forecasting service and supports decision makers and the public with information and products to minimize and mitigate dangerous space weather effects.

Services currently offered by the infrastructure:

  • Coordination of the Expert Service Center Ionospheric Weather (I-ESC) as “Federated Service” within the ESA SSA Program.
  • Provision of products and coordination of the GNSS user services within the PECASUS consortium, which is a global space weather product provider for ICAO.
  • Development of a GNSS information service based on solar information and current solar wind measurements together with real time monitoring and modelling of the ionosphere.
  • Continuous provision of high-resolution reconstructions of two- and three-dimensional plasma distribution as well as further ionospheric key parameters in near-real time.
  • Definition and validation of regionally specific ionospheric threat models for maritime and aeronautical GNSS applications.
  • NRT provision of ionospheric propagation error correction in single-frequency GNSS applications.
  • Provision of up-to-date information on the ionospheric interference level for radio systems.
  • Provision of ionospheric corrections for the reduction of ionospherically induced delay and defocusing effects of radar signals in remote sensing (e.g. TerraSAR-X).
  • Information service about ionospherically caused signal disturbances (amplitude and phase scintillations) in different application areas.
  • Information on ionospherically induced interference with services in the area of navigation and communication.

New areas opening to users:

The proposed data and models provided by DLR-SO node within the PITHIA-NRF allows research and user interaction in multiple areas. A selection of possible research areas are:

  • Solar flare monitoring and analysis of the ionospheric response.
  • Impact analysis for HF communication and GNSS performances by combination with GNSS measurements (TEC, TEC rates).
  • Spectral analyses to study radiation impacts on the lower ionosphere.
  • Research and analysis of D-Layer ionosphere disturbances from below (Gravity waves, Earthquakes, Hurricanes, radiation sources).
  • Analysis of ionospheric response during Solar Eclipse events.
  • Cross correlation with external data sets from users (e.g. in the domain of GNSS-positioning or communication) to check the vulnerability of their systems to solar flare events.
  • Specification of topside ionosphere and plasmasphere electron density using NPSM.
  • User can investigate phenomena connected to nighttime filling of the ionosphere such as the Nighttime Winter Anomaly (NWA), Weddell Sea Anomaly (WSA) and the Okhotsk Sea Anomaly (OSA).