The medium-scale traveling ionospheric disturbances (MSTIDs) is a class of disturbances propagating in the ionosphere with a typical wavelength of 50-100 km and a typical local oscillation period of 30-60 min To investigate the mechanisms of nighttime mid-latitude MSTIDs, a rocket-ground coordinated observation campaign with two sounding rockets and ground-based instruments are conducted by Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) in July 2013.
To monitor the occurrence of MSTIDs, which is one of the essential conditions for the rocket launches, a real time MSTID monitoring system was developed. To achieve a real time monitoring system, The forward-prediction method were shown to have equivalent or better performance level compared with the conventional centered-average method.
The real time MSTID monitoring system was utilized in the decision of ionospheric sounding rocket launches in targeting on the MSTID generation mechanisms. Based on the information provided by the real time MSTID monitoring system, two rockets were successfully launched when MSTIDs occurred in the region observed by the rockets.
Future studies include tuning of parameters of the forward-prediction perturbation TEC derivation for different ionospheric disturbances, and automated detection of MSTIDs and other ionospheric disturbances such as plasma bubbles from the perturbation TEC map.