Registration of ionospheric response to operation of the engine of spacecraft “progress” according to GNSS data

The paper presents some results of the detection of ionospheric response to the operation of the engines of transport and cargo spacecrafts “Progress” during experiments of 2006–2014. The detection of ionospheric effects was carried out according to the total electron content (TEC) data obtained on GPS/GLONASS stations. For the entire period of the experiment 72 spacecraft “Progress” flights have been processed. The TEC response was identified only in 7 cases on the LOSs which took place in the immediate vicinity of ionospheric region disturbed by the engine operation. It was found that the response represents a decrease of TEC with duration of 3–10 minutes and amplitude of 0,03–0,16 TECU, which only slightly exceeds the background variations. The analysis of ionospheric points movements allowed to estimate the transverse dimension of the region disturbed by engine operation. It was about 12–30 km.