Estimation of the Critical Frequency in the Radio Sounding of the Ionosphere on Board High-Orbit Spacecrafts over the Arctic Region

Abstract

A possibility of estimating the local value of the plasma frequency of the F2 layer ionospheric maximum (subionospheric region) according to the multifrequency sounding data of the arctic ionosphere from high-elliptical spacecrafts was considered. The data in the form of the frequency dependence of the group path of the sounding signal, the transionogram, were synthesized in the results of mathematical modeling. The energetic potential of proposed method, the wave field mode structure, and uncertainty of the critical frequency estimation according to the measured cut-off frequencies of magnetoionic components of the transionogram were analyzed. It was shown that the expected potential uncertainty of foF2 estimation is somewhat higher than that for the case of maximum reliable ground based data, but it is, in general, substantially less than the methods that use measurements of the total electron content in GPS technology. We discussed physical feasibility for a realization of the method for ionospheric state diagnostics.