How the Upper Atmosphere Shapes — and Breaks — Global Positioning Infrastructure
An intelligence assessment for governments, infrastructure operators, and institutions whose operations depend on reliable global positioning and satellite communications. The ionosphere is the largest single GNSS error source after satellite clock and orbit corrections, and during geomagnetic storms that error source can grow by an order of magnitude within hours. This paper examines the physics and classification of ionospheric scintillation, the documented continental-scale impact of the May 2024 storm on GNSS infrastructure — with high-accuracy positioning outages of up to 20 hours across North America and Australia — and the regional exposure patterns every institution operating GNSS-dependent infrastructure across multiple geographies needs to understand.
Published by Qontra Research · Orbital Sustainability Research Unit · Intelligence Research Unit