Lei submitted a paper to GPS Solutions last week. This study presents a comprehensive evaluation of storm-time ionospheric electron density measurements derived from Spire RO data by comparing them with measurements obtained from digisonde, incoherent scatter radar (ISR), and the constellation observing system for meteorology, ionosphere, and climate 2(COSMIC2) mission during February 2020 - December 2021.
Results showed electron density profiles (EDP) retrieved from Spire data are in general agreement with those from digisonde, ISR, and COSMIC2 RO observations, although Spire RO-retrieved EDPs sometimes are noisier than others. Spire RO-derived F2 layer peak density (NmF2) and peak height (hmF2) agree well with collocated measurements from digisonde and COSMIC2.
The good performance of Spire RO-derived ionospheric parameters suggests that low cost CubeSats can provide reliable ionospheric measurements to significantly contribute to global ionospheric monitoring.
Full manuscript can be accessed by emailing lei.liu@colorado.edu