Taiwan researchers link Artemis II launch to GPS errors across North America

Researchers from National Cheng Kung University, the Taiwan-based university, reported that the April 1, 2026, Artemis II launch set off brief errors across North America in GPS positions, with the readings off by several meters and the results labeled preliminary, and the figures unverified.

NASA confirmed that Artemis II lifted off from the Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Complex 39B, and the agency confirmed crew and mission profile details for the flight. The agency named Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen as the crew, and called it the first crewed journey beyond the Moon since the Apollo era. The agency says the flight supports a human presence on the Moon that would last.

The reporting says the rocket’s heavy-lift upper-stage burns changed electron density in the ionosphere, the electrically charged layer of the upper atmosphere, enough to cause positioning errors at the meter scale, and ties the findings to the launch. The launch created two disturbances in the ionosphere: one tied to the Space Launch System core stage during ascent, with a reportedly stronger disturbance tied to burns from upper-stage engines inside the ionosphere.

The disturbances reached across North America, the reporting says, though confirmation of the exact numbers still awaits the original paper. The university’s team used high-precision GPS receivers, tracking changes in free-electron concentration, the number of free electrons in a given volume, after the launch. The researchers used ground-based GPS readings to study how the launch altered electron density in the ionosphere.

The reporting says errors of several meters do not disrupt ordinary turn-by-turn navigation, though they can cut data quality or system reliability for precision surveying, tectonic monitoring, drone guidance and autonomous vehicle positioning. Users who need precision, such as surveyors and geodesists, require centimeter-level GPS accuracy, an operational requirement, not a convenience.

The reporting also says GPS kept operating through the Artemis II event, though researchers say that claim still awaits independent confirmation. The reporting compares the disturbance to solar storms, which can disrupt navigation over broad regions for hours or days, while rocket-caused disturbances are generally more localized and short-lived.

The agency says precision navigation faces growing relevance from upper-stage burns inside the ionosphere as launch frequency rises, with crewed and robotic launch rates rising under Artemis and other programs. The agency calls continued study of the atmospheric effects from routine heavy-lift missions a subject worth pursuing.

The findings come from reporting published by Yahoo Tech. It notes that independent confirmation of the paper and journal record is still lacking.